Tampa Bay Bucs using iPad as playbooks

While we’re not sure if an iPad can replace a laptop, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are using Apple’s tablet to replace their physical playbooks.

According to a report in TampaBay.com, the professional football team has put its extensive playbook onto iPad 2 units and distributed those to the team. Along with the plays, the Apple tablets also enable the players to watch game film and the touchscreen enables players to quickly fast forward to certain sections. It’s still an iPad, so you get all the goodies that are associated with it too like good web browsing and a robust application ecosystem.

The initiative cost the Tampa Bay Bucs about $5,000 but that’s chump change for a professional football team. These tablets also come with remote security options, so if a player happens to lose one, the team can remotely wipe it and keep their plays out of the hands of evildoers or worse, the Raiders. The response seems to be overwhelmingly positive.

“It’s crazy how much technology has changed the game,” second-year safety Cody Grimm told TampaBay.com. “Back in the day, I think probably the whole team had to sit down with a projector and a reel, and watch the film together. They’d have the whole offense in the same meeting room. Now we all have our own iPad. Stuff that we used to come in here to see, we can sit on our couch at home and have access to it 24-7. It’s awesome.”

This is just the latest example of how tablets and mobile devices are changing the way we work and play. While part of this move is the Bucs trying to appeal to its younger players and to look hip around the league, there are legitimate benefits of using an iPad 2 instead of physical playbooks and DVDs of game footage. Look for more industries to find uses for tablets of all kind.

Hell, I want a team to go with a BlackBerry PlayBook just for the cheap puns.

[Via TampaBay.com, photo credit]