More on the cheating Pats and Belichick's take on J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon

So I wrote about how I didn't think this whole Pat's cheating scandal was that big a deal here. Well here's a completely different take on it from one of my favorite football columns, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, written by Gregg Easterbrook. While I think he goes a little bit overboard, especially because I believe the heart of the NFL's popularity is how its rigid salary-cap and profit-sharing system maintains parity, Easterbrook raises some scary rumors about Belichick.

And the Patriots' cheating might have been more extensive than so far confirmed. Fox Sports reported that former NFL players believe Belichick had microphones installed in the shoulder pads of defensive linemen so the Patriots could tape other teams' offensive audibles and line calls. Needless to say, putting microphones on players violates NFL rules. Andrea Kremer of NBC reported that several teams might charge the Patriots this week with having stolen playbooks from the visitors' dressing room. The convenient "malfunction" of visiting teams' headphones at the Patriots' two fields under Belichick seems to have happened far too often to be an IT department error. The rumor mill says Belichick, Richard Nixon-style, has file cabinets of info on opposing coaches and assistant coaches – some gleaned honestly, some obtained by cheating.

That last bit sounds like Hoover to me, hence the title. Anyway, read his article, I'm beginning to feel myself shifting camps here.

Patriots 'cheating'

Ok, so many of my friends will think that I am probably going to go off here about the Patriots' camera incident last weekend, but I frankly don't think its a big deal. I mean, coaching signals are coded for a reason, we worried about it in high school! Second of all, a certain amount of gamesmanship is expected in football, especially at the highest level. Finally, their has been a certain elevated hysteria in the discussion about this video taping of the Jets' signals, including most headlines with "spying" in them. As noted by King Kaufman from Salon:

What the Pats are accused of doing is "spying" on the Jets coaches as they sent signals to the defense. My understanding of spying must be different from the NFL's. Watching a guy flapping his arms while standing in the middle of 70,000 people and in front of a national TV audience doesn't qualify. Even if you point a camera at him.

I agree. The original offense on the face of it seems not that big a deal.

I also question whether it would work. I already assume that all teams change their coding every game, and simple protective systems rotating every series should defend against even videotaping. They could have a two-signaller system. You have two coaches doing slightly different signals, but each series only one coach is giving the real signal (which the defensive captains already know), while the other sends in a similar dummy. Then in the second half, you use different coding, and still use the same two-signaller system. All the work done cracking the first-half code is useless. Shouldn't teams be using this anyway?

On the other hand, the Pats stand accused of specifically being warned about this offense. Check out what nlf.com has to say:

Patriots under investigation for following rules, guidelines violations ... 1. Page 105 of the Game Operations manual says: "No video recording devices of any kind are permitted to be in use in the coaches' booth, on the field, or in the locker room during the game." It later says: "All video shooting locations must be enclosed on all sides with a roof overhead."

2. And, a memo from Ray Anderson, NFL head of football operations, to head coaches and GMs on Sept. 6, 2006 said: "Video taping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent’s offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches’ booth, in the locker room, or at any other locations accessible to club staff members during the game."

There aren't really any two ways about that (by bolding). While I don't think their was any major effect of the taping, including even in the Jets game (I expect Tom Brady and Randy Moss will continue to torch opponents all season long; and as noted above, there are easy measures which seem to me like they could frustrate reading defensive signals), it is a rather blatant violation. The Sports Guy has a discussion with Aaron Schatz from Football Outsiders with a long bit of Patriot fan self-loathing, that I think even goes over the top a bit, but this bit struck me as true:

Here's the thing that shocks me: I always thought Belichick cared too much about his legacy to risk tainting it like this. He's a history buff and someone who allowed Halberstam to follow him around simply because he understood the intrinsic value of a great writer capturing his 'brilliance' in a widely read book. The whole thing is just bizarre.

Why oh why did the Pats do it? Especially since it seems to me particularly easy to defend against (just rotate between dummies rapidly and irregularly; or worst comes to worst, simply sending in the play call with a player). And they had already been warned? As Schatz put it:

What on Earth was Belichick thinking? The team had been warned by the league multiple times. They were playing the Jets -- did they think Eric Mangini had suddenly forgotten everything the Patriots had done when he was their defensive coordinator? Could you guys be a little more obvious with your cheating?

The crime seems irrelevant, and barely qualifies as cheating to me. The very act of trying to crack another team's signals is still considered sacred; nobody is disputing a team's right to have five guys staring at the other coaches writing down all their signals on a clipboard. Video might make it more effective and faster, but it is only a matter of one level of magnitude, and still the same act (cracking the other team's signals). So really it comes down to breaking the limits on rules, which seems hardly less ethical, just stupid. Petty, minor, irrelevant, stupid. But everyone is getting way to worked up about it I think.

Memo to the NFL - get rid of the green dots!

So I sat down to my first solid wasted Sunday's worth of NFL football, only to discover that my beloved (and much maligned) league had snuck an obnoxious new feature into my favorite sport. The green dot on the back of QB's helmets. The first thing I realized was how often I saw the back of a quarterback's head, and therefore how often I was staring at an incongruous green blemish on otherwise pristine helmets (particularly egregious was the Spot on the chargers' white helmets).

For the 2007 season, apparently, the NFL has put large green dot stickers, about 1.5 inches across, on the back helmets of every quarterback on the field. The reason, apparently, is "to indicate which helmets have built-in headphones to receive play calls".

Ok, well this is amusing for several reasons. First of all, according to this Packers website, the rule was instigated:

because the league felt offensive teams had an unfair advantage on these plays because they could call in a fake at the last second, by having two quarterbacks (with communication ability with coaches) on the field at the same time.

What? What?!!! When does this happen? What examples of egregious manipulation of radio communications have unbalanced a game since these technologies were introduced? Did this happen last year? If not, are they just speculating? Should we maybe spread nets across the top of all open NFL stadiums in case Al-Qaeda/North Korean/Iranian/French paratroopers attempt to leap into a game in progress?

I have to stare at these stupid Spots for the rest of the season because someone fixed somethin that wasnt broke. So many other things about the NFL could be improved (see: HgH use, criminality, concussions, care of retired players), and some flunky at the league office chooses this. It wouldn't bother me so much, were the moronic dots not so conspicuous.

Ok, so lets take it as given that the Spot is necessary, for the one play a year in the many thousands of plays in which a team attempts to manipulate radio communications. For this one event, less than 0.1% chance of occurring, cant we just have refs paying attention? What does the dot ensure anyway? Couldnt you just have a functioning radio without the sticker anyway? If you're going to cheat, why is having to put a sticker on your helmet going to stop you? This is so stupid, Im putting it in the idiot file. And my blood is going to boil every time I see it this year.