NFL professionals watch the tapes:
Trying to steal signals is nothing new in the NFL. All teams have advance scouts who watch and log opponents’ personnel groupings and record the signals they see from the sideline. The Patriots, however, took things to another level with their videotaping of opposing coaches. [...]
However, these videotapes likely were not used to make in-game adjustments because there simply is not enough time during game action and a 12-minute halftime to decipher and decode what those tapes contain. At halftime coaches and personnel staff are barely able to get a drink, use the restroom and relay to players the most basic things they saw in the first half, before the team heads back onto the field. Where the advantage lies is in the time it takes to prepare for the next game against the particular opponent being filmed: What would normally require watching and splicing hours of tape was already done in one fell swoop during a previous game.
If Scouts Inc. were running the scouting department of an NFL team, this kind of video would allow us to chart tendencies, personnel variations and play calls in a shorter time. Answers to questions about the opposing team would appear more quickly. What’s important to remember, though, is that teams eventually glean this kind of information from film study anyway: The video in question would simply be a shortcut in a process that is already under way. There is an advantage, but it is minimal. [...]
We don’t know for sure whether more tapes ever existed in New England, or how these tapes were broken down and used. But after reviewing the material released by the league, this much is clear: We saw nothing in that video that would allow us as a scouting department to provide a team with an unfair advantage over an opponent.
Yes, preparation time was reduced and film study was streamlined, but not in a way that single-handedly turned the Patriots into one of the premier teams in the league. In the end, the Patriots’ success comes down to having better players who make full use of the information provided to them.
But, of course, Mark Schlereth (of the great Denver Broncos) knows how these tapes could be used to great advantage at halftime, which is why NFL teams are constantly banging down his door to offer him coaching gigs. Oh, wait.
… Aaaand the Herald retracts. The Boston Herald, for those who don’t know, is often compared to the NY Post, but that’s not quite right. The NY Post actually does reporting. The Boston Herald is the journalistic equivalent of This Weird Dude I Met On The Bus Who Wouldn’t Stop Talking To Me, except you can clean up after your dog with it. It’s basically ten pages of transcribed Bill O’Reilly monologues followed by 5,000 pages of sports reporting, all of it ungrammatical and 99% made up. “According to an anonymously-sourced Boston Herald report” is not the way Great Tales of Journalism begin.
UPDATE: Why does Ted Kennedy hate America?
“With the war in Iraq raging on, gasoline prices closing in on $4 a gallon, and Americans losing their homes at record rates to foreclosure, the United States Senate should be focusing on the real problems that Americans are struggling with,” Kennedy said through a spokesman in response to a question posed by a Globe reporter. “I’m looking forward to another great Patriots season where they can let their play on the field speak for itself.”
Well, you all have made so much progress on this stuff over the last 18 months, it would be a shame if you got distra … Oooo! Steroids in Baseball! *Fap! Fap! Fap!* Face it: Senator Kennedy is just trying drown this young investigation before it has had a chance to blossom and mature, just like … hmmm. Well, just like something.
May 15, 2008 at 9:15 am
Yes, but did you get better?
May 15, 2008 at 9:59 am
Burn him! BURN HIM!
May 15, 2008 at 10:32 am
I don’t know. If what they did was within the rules then why is Belichick destroying evidence? This feels like something the Establishment will try to dust under the rug but that the actual football fans won’t forget about.
Cartoons here: http://spinachflame.wordpress.com/
May 15, 2008 at 10:35 am
What evidence did Belichick destroy?
May 15, 2008 at 10:45 am
Walsh is a chirpy little bird isn’t he?
“Walsh recalls speaking to a reserve quarterback, who told him about being called into Belichick’s office before the 2000 season opener against Tampa Bay. Also present in the room were then-offensive coordinator Charlie Weis and football research director Ernie Adams.
The Patriots explained to a backup quarterback how they intended to relay the Bucs defensive signals to starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Michael Bishop and John Friesz were the reserve quarterbacks. Tom Brady, a rookie, was not activated for the game.
According to Walsh, the plan was for the backup quarterback to learn the hand signals by Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin that the Patriots presumably had filmed when the teams played in the exhibition season. The quarterback would see what play was called and tell Weis, who would then relay it to Bledsoe through the headset in his helmet.
“The quarterback, you know, later told me that within two to three seconds when Monte Kiffin sent a play call into [Tampa Bay safety] John Lynch, Drew Bledsoe had it in his helmet,” Walsh said.
The Patriots lost the game, 21-16. But Walsh said the Patriots quarterback told him that the spying yielded remarkable success.
“One of the quarterbacks told me … he said probably about 75 percent of the time Tampa Bay ran the defense that we thought they were going to run,” Walsh said.”
– “It’s important information,” Walsh said. “And if you know what defense a particular team’s going to run, if you’re essentially in their huddle, that’s quite an advantage to have on offense.”
“Walsh was asked about comments by Belichick where the coach said, “I couldn’t pick Matt Walsh out of a lineup.”"
ttp://www.courant.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sports/hc-hbo0515.artmay15,0,725725.story
Oh my god this is so hard to understand! I just don’t get it. Even though I played real football with a real helmet, (TE/FS..boi!), was at Larry Allen’s bachelor party, and update my NFL 2K5 rosters by hand, (thanx Phil Steele.) If I was playing Madden or NFL 2K5 or CCS Football and I had said advantages, audibles would be much, much easier.
Kawika Mitchell and Marcus Stroud must punish you before the Bills move to Toronto and I don’t have a team anymore.
I think the NFL wants to avoid an ever escalating, annoying, cold war of spying.
May 15, 2008 at 10:46 am
Bill Bellichick, creationist, is, as we speak, or type, destroying the fossil record.
May 15, 2008 at 10:46 am
The fun thing about destroyed evidence is that it’s destroyed.
May 15, 2008 at 10:49 am
Also, isn’t this the obvious ethical equivalent of the dastardly British decoding German command and control messages in the forties?
May 15, 2008 at 10:54 am
Plus Gerry Callahan.
May 15, 2008 at 10:55 am
““According to an anonymously-sourced Boston Herald report” is not the way Great Tales of Journalism begin.”
Plus Gerry Callahan.
May 15, 2008 at 11:17 am
But I thought teams changed their signals all the time, so whatever you got off the tape was already outdated?
May 15, 2008 at 11:32 am
But what was Belichick doing on the Grassy Knoll?
May 15, 2008 at 11:35 am
http://threespeech.com/blog/?p=637
This is important research.
May 15, 2008 at 11:43 am
Yes.
I suspect it’s not about about using the signals to determine the play, but using the play to determine the signals, and figuring out if the opponents’ coaching staff is learning to counter your offensive schemes – in which case you show them something new – or not – in which case you keep doing it next time. They were keeping the tapes for years, and even Art Shell isn’t stupid enough to use the same signals for that long, so it’s probably long-term scouting of team and coach tendencies. I’m awesome at Madden*, so you should believe me.
* I suck at Madden.
May 15, 2008 at 11:46 am
It’s worth noting that 4 out of 5 dogs who express a preference prefer the Weird Dude on the Bus.
It’s difficult to explain to people who never lived in Boston just how astoundingly bad a paper the Herald is.
May 15, 2008 at 11:56 am
If I put you in a room with a football uniform to put on, would you come out like” Lucas”?
May 15, 2008 at 12:12 pm
“The quarterback, you know, later told me that within two to three seconds when Monte Kiffin sent a play call into [Tampa Bay safety] John Lynch, Drew Bledsoe had it in his helmet,” Walsh said.
The Patriots lost the game, 21-16. But Walsh said the Patriots quarterback told him that the spying yielded remarkable success.
But it didn’t.
Bledsoe’s numbers, in the year before Belichick came to town:
3985 passing yards, 19 TD, 21 INT, 7.4 YPA, 77.3 passer rating
Now, the year when Belichick’s magic, omnipotent and invincibly awesome spying program came into being:
3291 yards, 17 TD, 13 INT, 6.2 YPA, 77.3 passer rating
And just so you don’t even think about saying, “ZOMG IT TOOK HIM A YEAR TO GET USED TO THE NEW SYSTEM!!!!”, Bledsoe was just as mediocre throughout his first two games in 2001. Which the allegedly all-powerful Patriots lost.
Face it: spying isn’t what made the Patriots great. Having Matt Light at left tackle, having Brady at QB and having a strong d-line and LB corps anchored by Seymour, Vrabel, Bruschi and McGinnest.
Did the videotaping give them an edge? Sure. But it’s not something that would have helped them if they’d just plain sucked.
May 15, 2008 at 12:29 pm
“Did the videotaping give them an edge? Sure.”
You sir, are a worthy opponent of yourself. I think the punishment fit the crime, that’s that. I don’t think they should astrik their games, or any thing else. If they made the effort to do it, it must have been worthwhile, if it wasn’t worthwhile, then they wouldn’t have done it, and the NFL was very fair and lenient. End of story.
It doesn’t matter if allegedly everyone else was doing it and I don’t buy the idea that it was a worthless exercise. It can’t be both worthless and drive any inter-organizational action considering the required efficiency of the NFL schedule and/or lead to investigation and findings of guilt. You don’t apologize for the worthless things you’ve done. I understand fan boy mentality but some perspective is warranted. It’s not all bad, but it sure the hell isn’t all good.
NFL teams have enough problems without Offices of Special Projects, if they don’t regulate it, it would just spiral out of control.
May 15, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I allude to Madden because even people with a casual acquaintance with football know that the defense is attempting to mask their intentions pre-snap, as is the offense, now if you know that the defense is showing cover-2, but intends to blitz both LBs, you’re going to need to get that ball out to your RB in the flat or to your flanker on a quick-in route, asap. The QB calls a play, knows the D’s true intentions, he can audible to something beneficial.
May 15, 2008 at 1:39 pm
You need to start a separate feed for these pro-NE rant posts so that we can avoid the boring posts on the Presidential election, the occupation of Iraq, the evisceration of the Bill of Rights, etc. and spend all our time thinking about and commenting on this!
May 15, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I have a rare degenerative disorder which is turning me into Corey Haim. I find your question offensive.
Yeah. Walsh is the bitter NFL fan’s Scheherazade – he’s got a new fantastic tale every day, and ample incentive to keep telling new ones. To date, however, they’ve all been bullshit, and his authority is still being a videographer who got fired 5 years ago. He wouldn’t know shit about how the Patriots front office works. BB has been an NFL coach for 30 years, during which time he’s worked with any number of current and former NFL coaches, and probably countless scouts, etc., any of whom could be interviewed about how BB, and NFL teams generally, do scouting. One could also interview Jimmy Johnson, Ditka, Madden, or any of the other coaches who have said the whole thing was horseshit from day one, and ask them about how NFL teams conduct business. And then you could levy fines against any team that broke any rules about video camera placement or misuse of the IR list or creative salary cap accounting or contacting FAs out of turn or other equivalent misdomeanors, and take away their first round draft picks, which I suspect would mean that the first round of the 2009 draft could be held in the 2062th year of the Seventh Galactic Dynasty. Obviously the NFL won’t do this, but I sincerely hope Specter and Leahy follow through, because the NFL – meaning Goodell – brought this on themselves by turning a stupid pissing match with Belichick over videotaping procedure into this fucking circus. Matt Walsh in front of Congress would be a riot.
May 15, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Interestingly, I don’t need to do this at all! You need to start your own vanity website and write exclusively about all the shit that makes me want to put a shotgun in my mouth and show me how it’s done! And then when somebody shows up to whine how your vanity website isn’t exactly what they want, you can fix it special for them! Get on that!
May 15, 2008 at 2:08 pm
This is certainly no issue for Congress.
Like I said, the punishment fit the crime, and we should move on.
The NFLs process was judicious, the opinions of a variety of coaches, (of whom you could find a panel pro and con), doesn’t mean that much to me because they weren’t a part of the NFLs “trial.” I’m not saying the process was perfect or that other teams have not taken part in equivalent activities, but those cases are immaterial to the Patriot’s case. Just like a robber can’t use the activities of other robbers as a defense, or how most robbers conduct their robberies as a defence, if it’s in the rule book and you get a reasonable trial, then don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
In this case the time is public perception, maybe that’s unjust, but it’s also impossible to control.
As for trusting BB or Walsh? I don’t know them, and neither do you. I have perceptions of them, but they may not be accurate. I do know that BB wouldn’t shake hands with a former assistant coach after he lost a game, (weak), and that he had to pout off the field in the lat SB, (get a grip.) megalomania,passive aggression, paranoia come to mind, but also for most of the NFL. He’s also the best coach along with Bill Walsh. That’s nice, but it doesn’t speak to his character or sense of perspective about his own importance.
Sorry, I had to fit Lucas in somewhere. Only to make you laugh mad dog.
May 15, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Oh, I think it is. This Congress passes dumb laws and holds joke hearings. They could at least hold joke hearings I might find funny. They should take a kneel down and run out the clock until 2009.
The NFL’s “process” was completely retarded, and no current coach or owner you ask is going to say that unless he wants Goodell’s foot up his ass. BB is an unlikeable vindictive antisocial football nerd who hates 99% of everybody, but, as long as he obeys all the NFL’s important anti-dancing ordinances, that’s nobody’s problem but his shrink’s. I’m not asking for the “crime” to go unpunished, I just think it should be applied to all “robbers”, not just the one whose personality and success annoys the most miserable of football fans. If it is applied fairly, you’ll be scouting your next first round draft pick on an ultrasound machine.
May 15, 2008 at 2:22 pm
The article about Walsh is mixed. On one hand he’s creepy, on the other hand some of co-workers said he worked hard and that they couldn’t believe the quality of people the pats could get to work for them for minimum wage. BB started his NFL career the same way, in a closet, doing whatever for peanuts for the Baltimore Colts. He’s kinda creepy too.
I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that the Pats fired Walsh when he came close to having to be made a permanent employee/receive benefits, whatever. It happens. Whistleblowers come in all flavors, they’re always defamed by their opponents, like most people, Walsh is likely not all good nor all bad, but somewhere in the middle, we’ll say the same for BB. When has a whistleblower not been labeled as having nothing but “sour grapes?” Likely it’s the sour that motivates the, ehm, blowing, but if the investigation pans out, it does.
May 15, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Agreed, apply it to all the robbers. I don’t have a problem with that. You need witnesses, most want to keep their current jobs, so you know how that goes. How do you prove someone didn’t do something?
May 15, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Also Fernando Bryant isn’t good. Beware.
May 15, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Congressional testimony under oath should do the trick. Bush would pardon Jerry Jones, but I could ilve with that. John Madden could explain everything to the folks at home using the Telustrator. Guys with fifteen testicles and body hair on their eyeballs could explain how they say no to illegal performance enhancing drugs, and then Hulk Smash the podium. I really want to see this.
May 15, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Well, he’s no Earthwind Moreland or Hank Poteat, but I think he’ll be OK. Pass defense is played at the line of scrimage. Ask the Giants.
May 15, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Jason Webster is just so, so bad..released by the Bills bad. Bryant has two picks last year, but none the previous three. You will miss Poteat. Defense is played at the line of scrimmage, but these guys aren’t even that physical. I like Mayo, Crable and Bo Ruud and the other young LBs incl. Eric Alexander and TJ Slaughter they’re much needed replenishment players. The DL is still the best. I don’t like their corners. Lewis Sanders is kind of interesting because he’s so big 6-1, 210, he’s bigger then the FS James Sanders, he can jam receivers with the best of them. I bet Hobbs and Sanders end up playing a lot more then Bryant and Webster who have lost three steps by this point.
Your backs, OL and receivers are perfect. DL is perfect, especially with all the work Le Kevin and Green got last year, LBs very good, Safeties are rad, Corners, not so much. IMO.
May 15, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Interestingly, I don’t need to do this at all! You need to start your own vanity website and write exclusively about all the shit that makes me want to put a shotgun in my mouth and show me how it’s done! And then when somebody shows up to whine how your vanity website isn’t exactly what they want, you can fix it special for them! Get on that!
This is the best comment I’ve ever read.
May 15, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Merriwether is an absolute beast, a safety with corner speed, and he was playing lights out by the end of last year. He’s young and he loves to hit people. Don’t be surprised if he takes Hobbs’ or Bryant’s spot, thuogh he can play anywhere. Tank Williams will spell Rodney, and Sanders is solid. Wheatley is fast, Hobbs 2.0, and should get in the rotation. This secondary is going to be very, very physical, though a bit raw. If Seymour is healthy this year, though, it’s not going to matter. Cornerback is an overvalued position.
ILB is the question mark. Mayo, Hobson, Bruschi, and Seau make 4 weak side ILBs with a combined age of six trillion. They still haven’t replaced Ted Johnson. If Seau can be summoned again from his haunted sarcophagus and he and Bruschi are as good as last year, and if they somehow stay healthy, they get away with not being physical enough. If Hobson is what he was 3 years ago, or if Mayo is a quick study, they get away with being raw. Otherwise, the linebacking is still very iffy. Rookie linebackers are projects, and they don’t play under Belichick. Pierre Woods is still waiting for his own uniform. You have to stop the run first, and if they can’t do that, they turn into some bullshit Run-n-Gun Lions team.
May 15, 2008 at 4:38 pm
The quality of your corners determines your capacity to play man to man, which you have to do inside the red zone.
May 15, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I wish the Bucs would videotape somebody, anybody.
May 15, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Wow, when did ThePoorman turn into a sports blog? I guess I’ll go read SadlyNo!, and hope they’re talking about something more interesting, like knitting or something…
May 15, 2008 at 8:53 pm
^^^ Steelers fan ^^^
May 16, 2008 at 5:27 am
You guys sound like Republicans defending torture.
Did your team cheat? YES. They embarrassed and disgraced themselves because they couldn’t obey the rules. That’s all there is to it.
So STFU with the rationalizations.
May 16, 2008 at 9:11 am
The Steelers: they’re from Texas, right? Or is it Oklahoma?
. I’m off to read this scintillating new cross-stitching blog I found…
May 16, 2008 at 9:17 am
Yup. Total Steelers fan.
May 16, 2008 at 9:39 am
I take offense at the mere thought of the Steelers being a Texas team.
May 16, 2008 at 9:45 am
I take offense at the mere thought of the Steelers being a football team.
May 16, 2008 at 9:59 am
Look, I hate the Patriots as much as the next guy, but this is a bullshit issue.
We need to focus on the real tragedy here–Tom Coughlin, the world’s most vile and disgusting life form, actually managed somehow to win a Super Bowl and will, therefore, be remembered as a “good coach” instead of “the world’s most vile and disgusting life form.”
We need Congress to pass some form of intervention legislation that will prevent the NFL from ever having Tom Coughlin haunting a Super Bowl sideline again. My heart–nay, my very soul–simply cannot stand that strain again.
May 16, 2008 at 10:11 am
“I take offense at the mere thought of the Steelers being a football team.”
I suspect what really offends the Editors is the two fewer Superbowl trophies the Pats have, and the indelible tarnish that’s now appeared on two of the three they do.
May 16, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Also, Football is nothing but rugby for sissies.
May 18, 2008 at 4:15 am
You guys sound like Republicans defending torture.
Except that torture is ends up with, like, people beaten within inches of their lives after being sodomized with glowsticks for hours. Taping signals, on the other hand, just hurts somebody’s feeeeeeeelings. Who. Cares.
Did your team cheat? YES. They embarrassed and disgraced themselves because they couldn’t obey the rules.
I don’t think they’ve disgraced themselves. Cheating is a time-honored tradition in the NFL. I’d have been disappointed in them if they’d actually done all this shit completely honestly – it would have shown me that they could have won six Super Bowls this decade instead of a mere three.
So STFU with the rationalizations.
The Patriots lost the Super Bowl last year, but I guarantee you they will still beat the crap out of whoever your favorite team is. So neener. Neener. Neener. El. Oh. El.