The Pittsburgh Steelers did a tour de force in the 2020 NFL draft by acquiring Chase Claypool, a Canadian wide receiver who played at Notre Dame. As a rookie, Claypool blasted 3 touchdowns on the Philadelphia Eagles, and since then, all eyes are on this future star. On October 18th against the Cleveland Browns, Claypool did not deceive, totaling 74 receiving yards. One of his four catches was a 36 yards reception putting the Steelers in a really good position to score. The timing between the receiver and his QB Ben Roethlisberger was impeccable. Although players do not think about the physics behind their actions, many concepts that we have studied in class can be applied to that 36 yards reception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0-PVh2zVTQ

     First, by analyzing the video and using the official NFL field dimensions, I was able to approximate the position of the ball (position of the Qb), and the position of Claypool at the moment of the throw which I considered to be the initial time (t=0 seconds). With the video, I also found the final position of both the ball and Claypool, in addition to the air time of the ball using a stop watch: 2.2 seconds. Although the WR route was an "out'n'go", which means that the receiver ran towards the sideline before cutting upfield, the QB did not throw the ball until Claypool started running upfield as he needed to assess if the defender was eliminated. Thus, Claypool's run while the ball is in the air is approximately vertical.

      

  After finding the different position and distance components of the receiver and the ball at both t=0 and t=2.2s (t final found using a stop watch), I used kinematics to find the x and y components of the initial velocity of the ball. This allowed me to find both the angle and the initial velocity of the throw. The orientation of the throw and the average speed of the receiver were also found as they are part of the timing of the play.

     The conclusion of this play's analysis is at follows: Ben Roethlisberger threw the ball when Chase Claypool was on the 21 yard line. He threw it with an angle of 28.4 degrees above the horizontal with an initial velocity of 22.7 m/s. Roethlisberger's body was oriented 56.2 degrees North to West, and the ball reached a height of about 8m above the ground. On his side, Claypool ran at an average speed of 5.6m/s vertically while the ball was in the air. Many assumptions were made in the calculations. I assumed that there was no air friction, disregarded the arm length of both players, rounded both players' heights to be the same as they were very similar, an assumed that all NFL football fields have the exact same dimensions. Imprecision in the positions' approximation are also to be considered.

       It is truly interesting to see how a single football throw combines so many physics concepts and it is even more outstanding to realize that the human body is capable of doing such calculations in the span of milliseconds.