Sure they have the means. All they have to do is write it down.
Then why didn’t he just write it down?! It is illogical to do something blatantly against the rules if he doesn’t stand to gain anything from it. He either saw it as an advantage over taking notes (for whatever reason) or he is completely fucking stupid.
The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the rule isn’t meant to prevent “cheating” or any unfair advantage. I bet it is just part of a blanket ban on any video cameras at the game. The authorized broadcaster pays a lot of money for the right to broadcast the game, and the value of those rights would be diluted if other cameras were allowed, and that would cost the NFL money.
I believe all opposing teams should forfiet their games against The Patriots; that way there will be no way for them to video tape the coaching signals during play.
I don’t know why they did it but I DO know it couldn’t possibly give them any advantage in the game that’s being played. If you disagree, then let’s hear your theory of how videotaping something that’s already in plain sight of the coaching staff gives them an advantage.
Bingo. It’s not about “cheating” at all. That’s pretty much a red herring. It’s about the NFL wanting to control all the video footage. BB was probably doing it for whatever marginal advantage he might be able to get from it in the Pats next game against the Jets (who are in the same division, so they’ll play at least once more this season). Bellechick has a reputation as being kind of obsessive about scouting and preparation and this might just be one more little thing he might have thought would help him down the roade, but it doesn’t amount to “cheating” in the game at hand, only to a violation of NFL regs on videotaping. This is a mountain out of a molehill.
I don’t actually know what advantage it could give him. That’s my point. I’m asking why, if it yields no advantage, he would risk getting punished over it. Just because he can? Because he wasn’t thinking? Because he thought he wouldn’t get caught? Because his Super Bowl rings are so sparkly, he thought he could distract the commisioner?
That’s what I don’t get. Why do something that carries the risk of penalty if it doesn’t also carry a possible advantage? There’s always a payoff when cheating, or breaking the rules. A payoff deemed more valuable than the actual punishment is painful. Otherwise, why do anything illegal/unethical/immoral/bad?
I’m not saying I know what that payoff is. I’m not saying I know what advantage BB saw. I am claiming there must be one, somehow, otherwise BB’s actions make absolutely no sense.
I dunno about that; they’re talking about hand signals, not verbiage. I’d imagine you could show your QB the tape and say “these hand gestures mean a zone blitz” and have that be a million times more helpful than showing the QB a textual description of said gestures.
I suppose you could mimic the hand gestures, but that still requires the spy writing down cliffs notes describing how to mimic each one. Videotape would probably be much more effective no matter how you slice it.
Okay, background. The morning drive jocks out here in SoCal (and various syndication markets) do this thing with each football season, where all of the on-air “family” members picks their prediction for the Super Bowl. Everyone except the one with the best win-loss record is assigned a punishment, Examples of punishments have included:
- Sit in a steel drum while a team of golf pros hits chip shots at you from 30 yards.
- Have your legs waxed, on the air.
- Sing the National Anthem at a professional hockey game.
- Stand out in the street and persuade a stranger to allow you to pick his nose.
- Walk through a supermarket, and eat a meal from the items on the shelves; then leave without paying.
I say we think up enough of these to accommodate each member of the Patriots playing, coaching, and support staff, and let them line up and have everyone pick one out of a hat.
p.s. note to pepperlandgirl: maybe BB is crushing on the opposing team’s signal-giver-outer, and wants to have a creepy, stalkerish record of everything that man does, for later self-gratification.
It isn’t much different than stealing a catcher’s signs in baseball. If the runner on second base can pick them off and relay them to the batter, well tough cookies to the catcher for not hiding them well enough. If the coaches in the dugout can decode the third base coach’s signals from the other team, more power to them. But when you start bringing in watching television screens or having guys planted in the scoreboard with binoculars, that’s over the line in my opinion and you should be punished. I say make them play a game in pink tutus.
Oh well. I guess they’ll have to switch to a SIGINT van out in the parking lot, bristling with antennae, pulling down both the NFL feed of the game and all the Motorola headset chatter.
Seriously, though, videotaping is against the rules because it would lead to an arms race of counter-counter-counter-signals that cause the game to suffer. Belichik should be punished for breaking the rule on videotaping, whether or not the NFL’s primary motivation is to protect their broadcast monopoly. If any coach is allowed to collect film of the games that no other coach has access to, that film gives him some advantage. If nobody were filming the games, tape of a game could be very desirable; however, given the glut of information the league already shares, they are absolutely within their rights to tell the coaches “the film we give you is the same film we give everyone, and you may not have more.” It draws a clear line about what may be filmed (nothing except what the networks film) and what may not be filmed (everything else).
Cheating is cheating; if he’s been warned before, suspend him for the season.
:rolleyes: Makes no sense at all. Are they afraid of bootleg versions of a coach waving his arms going on YouTube? Have you seen a football game? The teams film every game. Do you think when they analyze game footage they just Tivo’d the game on Fox? No they have their own films, which is perfectly legal. They do this because in order to analyze each play they have to see the whole field and what each player is doing. The TV coverage usually only shows about ten yards of the play. They can even get snapshots of formations printed on the sidelines doing the game from their own cameras. It is illegal to film the signals. The next day I also heard on the radio that there is an investigation into if they were monitoring the Jets radio signals as well.
Just to stick up for my Jets, it was the league itself that caught them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mangini, from the Belicheck school of coaching, has been doing the same thing to other teams.
I’m not so sure. Teams have their own monitoring systems on the field on game day. If they showed the tape to the offensive coordinator during the game, he could radio in calls to Brady based on watching the Jets defensive coaches.
As for the penalty…The Jets aren’t getting the game or the draft picks. At most, I think we’ll see a late rounder taken from them (3rd or 4th) and a suspension for the HC of the NEP. I don’t expect that much though.
Rational penalty aside, It would be wonderful if Brady suddenly turns into an average QB, starts getting sacked and Gisele dumps him.
Or cause the game to be more awesome.
I love football as warfare metaphors. . .right down to counterintel.
I was listening to Chris Mortenson this morning. This really sounds like its not an isolated case with the Pats, or within the league. Both Mangini and Crennel have been D-Coords under BB, and surely have known about this stuff.
Mort also said that Zach Thomas claimed – after the game where Pats got shutout by Miami – that they had studied the network feed to steal the Pats audibles. Mort said that was believed to be bullshit, and that one trick that teams have been known to use is to mic some of their defensemen to detect the audio, and then match the tape up with the game tape after the game.
This ain’t isolated to the Pats.
Reading between the lines, this may actually be fairly common practice. First, why did Goodell reiterate to all teams last year that this was illegal if it’s only the Patriots doing it? (In addition to the league-wide reminder, apparently New England got a specific warning to cut it out.)
Chris Mortensen brought up the New England-Miami game last year when the Dolphins shut out the Pats. At the time Jason Taylor said that they managed to decode the Patriots’ signals off a television feed. This morning Mortensen said (paraphrased) “of course there was no television feed; that was an example of the Dolphins doing to the Pats last year what the Patriots did to the Jets last week.”
Meanwhile, Greeney was in danger of altitude sickness he was up on such a highhorse, talking about how Belichick was headed for the ranks of the greatest coaches ever but now his legacy may be forever tarnished. As a (secondary) Jets fan, I think he’s being a whiny little pussy.
The more I hear about this story, the more it gets a big fat “meh” out of me. My interpretation is that Goodell wants to clean up all facets of the league; player run-ins with the law and teams stealing signs using video equipment may have been equally endemic under Tagliabue, and Goodell is simply trying to stamp both out. For getting caught red-handed, (the dumbasses,) I’d say a reasonable penalty would be to dock them either a 7th rounder, a supplemental draft pick, or knock them to the end of waiver priority. If he wants to make them an example and send a strong message, dock them a 6th rounder.
Any penalty stiffer than that reeks of bullshit, IMO. And I fucking hate the Patriots.
Clearly Trunk and I were listening to the same broadcast. Jason Taylor, Zack Thomas, potAto, potato. Same family by marriage at least.
The league is also looking into some kind of radio frequency irregularities during the game. What if the cameraman was sending the photos to someplace where the coaches or coordinators could view them?
from ESPN:
I actually couldn’t remember which of the two it was either, and went with Thomas.
I’ll also point out that the Patriots and the Jets, members of the same division in the AFC, will be playing one more game against each other later in the season. While taping the signals might not have provided an advantage to the Patriots during this game, it might prove an advantage during the subsequent meeting.
If you think your signals are being intercepted, change 'em. Damn, what a stupid story this is.