This Is a Scandal?

There's a rule about videotaping from the sidelines. They were specifically warned (along with all the other teams) about not breaking said rule. They broke it anyways.

It is a big deal for the same reason that getting caught blood doping or using steroids or amphetamines is a big deal in bicycle racing or track and field. It is against the rules. Now every sport has places where you gain advantages by bending the rules, but you always run the risk of getting caught and punished.

As Aaron notes, this particular rule was made a 'point of emphasis' this year in a memo to all coaches in the NFL. That makes this case particularly egregious. Note that there is no rule against using binoculars. The rule is against videotaping the signals so you can spend the entire year figuring out which action is the actual signal.

It is also getting a lot of attention because there have been some pretty good reasons printed in newspaper stories I have read to believe that they might have won a Super Bowl by doing this. Proving that would change the coach from "genius" to "almost didn't get caught cheater" and might (as in baseball) change people's opinions about whether he belongs in the Hall of Fame or the Hall of Shame.

Yeah what he said. The NFL put in the rule so teams wouldn't all start putting radios in all the helmets, then having to encrypt to defeat eavesdropping and have players looking like idiots when they got gibberish in their helmets, and so on in some kind of techno race distracting from the field. So they just put in the rule of no video of the sidelines, and some other stuff to prevent this spying and told all the teams. Then NE did it anyway...

Call that a punishment? £49.2m and a loss of all your team points is a real punishment.

Anyway, it appears the Patriots were fined for having someone stood on the *Jets* sideline with a video camera. Not as bad as having a mole in a rival's camp for three months, as the McLaren F1 team allegedly did, though...

Stealing another team's signs is a no-no, especially in the modern era. If a batter in baseball "peeks" at the cathcer's signs to the pitcher, you had better believe he is getting a high, hard one right in the middle of his back. Even the practice of signaling the hitter from second base, which used to be accepted gamesmanship, is generating friction in the majors. Why? Because having foreknowledge of the pitch that's heading your way is a huge advantage.

Now let's look at football. Film study is everything. There is so much happening on every play that there is no way to digest it all on gameday. One of the reasons Bill Belichick looks like he slept in his clothes all the time is because he did. These coaches work insane hours, breaking down tendencies for teams on third and less than 4 from the shotgun formation when they are trailing by more than 6...and on ad infinitum. The ideas that any edge a coach can get is too infinitesimal to matter, and that signs stolen can be broken down in real time, are both non-starters. I'm sure that Little Bill went over that tape in a trancelike state at the half, and I'm sure it helped, and I'm sure that it would have helped the next time the teams played, if the Patriots hadn't been caught.

So why is this a scandal? Besides the blatant flouting of the rules involved, let's also remember that this is a team that won super bowls by 3, 3, and 3 points. How long has this taping been going on? Did it make a difference in championship play? Smells like a scandal to me.

Plus I hear Tom Brady kills puppies.

I understand that they have a rule against this. For that reason they shouldn't have done it.

But I really can't get worked up about it. Losing a 1st round pick is a pretty big penalty. And the fine to Billick seems outrageous. What happens to the guy who actually filmed it? I know Billick probably told him to do it, but shouldn't he be penalized?

The other thing is that I don't know where the line is. Teams wouldn't have to code their signals if they weren't afraid of having them read from across the field by naked eyes. Coaches cover their mouths to avoid having lips read by guys with binoculars. Are binoculars legal, but not video cameras? Could a coach carry one of those sideline microphone dishes, focus it on the opposite sideline, and listen to their conversations? Is that worse than recording coded signals?

Why is it a big deal? This is pretty much exactly the same as trying to see your opponent's hand in poker. Sure, you can peek and try all you want, but if you're caught, you're gonna be in deep trouble.

I do want to respond to foos "Because having foreknowledge of the pitch that's heading your way is a huge advantage."

-As it turns out, it only helps some players. And some players actually prefer NOT to know. They worry about expecting a pitch too much, when it turns out the other team knows about the sign stealing and then switches it up at critical moments. They'd rather rely on their skill - see ball, hit ball. Not all players - but quite a few.

"And the fine to Billick seems outrageous"

Uh, Belichick, not Billick. Normally I wouldn't care about an honest typo, but Billick actually is a head coach for another team, and that could confuse people.

"And the fine to Billick seems outrageous"

Uh, Belichick, not Billick. Normally I wouldn't care about an honest typo, but Billick actually is a head coach for another team, and that could confuse people.

Actually, the aim here was probably somewhat more subtle than just stealing signs to figure out what defensive play is going to be run. While, yes, there is some possibility that by such a trick you would be able to detect what the defense plans to do and adjust offensive strategy accordingly, actually doing that in game would take too much time and be very risky, considering the possibility that the defense could change what signals it uses between games. If anything, taped signals would be used to help figure out the way the opposing defense thinks; the signals used as an aid to analysis of taped plays could help break down the defense more effectively.

The other aim of taping the signals is to make more work for the opposing defense. To do this it is not even necessary to actually be filming. The *belief* that their signals have been taped might lead the defensive coordinator to require that a new symobology be employed in the next game. This doubles the coaches' burden, as now they must not only adjust their defensive scheme, but also teach a whole new play-calling language to their defensive captains. As foos says, these coaches are already working hours most of us would find impossible. They can't work longer, so when you make them do more in a week you're going to degrade something. Either their scheme won't be as good, or the new signals won't be learned entirely. And that can be a major edge.

Feh, the NFL are pikers. The same day that Belichek's fine got handed down, the FIA gave McLaren a $100,000,000 fine and tossed them out of this year's Formula1 championship for having illicit copies of Ferrari documents.

Now that's a punishment for cheating!

Stealing signals take some of the skill off the field. Part of the skill of being on the defense is being able to quickly determine what is happening on the field during the play. How many big plays come from an offense catching the defense unawares or expecting something else? If every defense knew every play that was going to be run, I think the game would lose some excitement.

Allowing teams to take all measures possible to read the opposing teams' signals will lead to time and energy spent on encryption schemes that provide nothing for the fans. I'm sure the players would also much rather spend their time playing football than memorizing new signals every week.

Yes, I know we cannot root out all attempts to read signals (everyone can see with the signals/plays with their own eyes). But the NFL can keep it in check by limiting the means for doing it, like they are doing here.

I'm not impressed by the outrage. It is very clearly against the rules, and for that reason ought rightly to be punished. On the other hand, it's a really stupid rule, and for that reason ought rightly to be broken whenever possible.

If you want to communicate with your players while they're on the field and the game is on-going, you run the risk of having those communications intercepted. I could absolutely get behind the rules against stealing the playbook ahead of time-- that's obviously theft. I could absolutely get behind the rules against bugging the opposition's locker rooms-- that's carrying the game to places that are outside the game.

But trying to regulate the practice of observing participants during the game seems like an attempt to declare game-time activities by participants as protected out-of-game activities, and that's just silly. (And in this case, the coach is clearly an in-game participant. If he weren't, no one would care about the communications in the first place.)

I'm pretty much with Novak on this one. It's clearly against the rules, and I'm not saying that they shouldn't be punished. I just have a hard time seeing this as a totally beyond-the-pale violation of the fundamnetal spirit of the game.

To make an analogy to play on the field, rules get broken all the time during play, but there are different degrees of rules violations. It seems to me that the Patriots are basically guilty of holding-- a violation that goes slightly beyond the normally allowed range-- but that the commentariat are treating this as if they were stomping on an injured player after the whistle-- a totally outrageous violation of basic principles of sportsmanship.

I mean, as I understand it, the violation here was just that they videotaped the signals. Had they hired an assistant coach with an eidetic memory, and given him a pair of binoculars, they could've gotten exactly the same results and there wouldn't've been any violation. I have a hard time seeing this as a fundamental threat to the integrity of the game.

The reason it is a rule is because it takes away the skill that is suppossed to be in the game. In the simple sense once you have the singals it doesn't take a genuis to figure out to call a screen when they are blitzing. It affects the margins of the games. A play for a no game becomes a three to five yard game here and there type of stuff. Added up over the course of a game and that can enable victory. It can keep drives going longer than they would have, wearing out the defense. Over the course of a game it adds up by the 4th quarter. Especially when you consider eating up clock affects what the other offense calls.

It is especially important in close games in the 4th quarter. Using the signals on one drive to get a touchdown would be challenging at the end of a game because of all the variables involved. If all you need to do is maneveur to position your team so your kicker has a good shot of kicking a field goal, then knowing the signals is key. As noted above the margin of victory of the Pats in those Super Bowls was minimal. Two games they one in the final seconds, doing what? Kicking field goals. Put a tired defense against an offense knowing the signals, I would place bets on the offense to get that field goal especially with the kicker the Pats had during their Super Bowl runs. It also calls into question whether Brady is really Mr. Clutch or not.

The other reason it is such a big deal is that the teams were all reminded of the rule this year because of suggestions the Pats were doing it last year. Despite these warnings and playing a team coached by one of the Pats former coaches, they still went ahead and did it.

As an aside, if you are Norte Dame it makes you question the investment in Weis. Is he really the offensive genuis they thought he was when they hired him? Especially in light of this Weis comment back in 2000 to Marinelli, a defensive line coach for the Bucs after the Pats played Tampa Bay:
"We knew all your calls, and you still stopped us," Weis said. "I can't believe it."

He might have been exagerating as a compliment but it could have been the honest truth. It clouds all the Pats have accomplished.

For the NFL as a business this is a problem. It calls into question Super Bowl victories. It also has an obvious affect on Fantasy Football leagues. Pat players might have picked up a few more yards and scores than they would have otherwise. The popularity of the NFL is partially due to those fantasy leagues. Those start getting called into question and their popularity starts to wane as does the NFL's, which is not good for business. You throw this on top of Vick and Rodney Harrison & other incidents during the off-season and what you have is a recipe for potential disaster.

I mean, as I understand it, the violation here was just that they videotaped the signals. Had they hired an assistant coach with an eidetic memory, and given him a pair of binoculars, they could've gotten exactly the same results and there wouldn't've been any violation. I have a hard time seeing this as a fundamental threat to the integrity of the game.
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With videotape it is significantly easier to determine who is actually making the call. Usually teams have decoys for the reason you suggest. Having tape and coaches going over it during the course of a game makes it less about intellect and more about throwing people at the problem.

For myself, the willful disregard for a rule about which there had been a specific warning makes me suspicious. I can't point towards anything specific, but such rule-breaking is rarely an isolated thing.

One of the reasons the league said something this year was because of an incident when Green Bay played New England. It was unknown if the said person filming without the proper credentials was doing something illegal or not but it raised eyebrows and prompted the league to act.

To address how this is different than holding:

Holding is called on the field of play by the refs. The penalty negates good plays and costs the team yardage in theory when it happens. It is policed during the game (how effectively is another question) and thus doesn't affect the margins of a game that much. It is also relatively easy offense to catch. Taping signals though is much more difficult requiring review of evidence after a game has been played and decided. It affects every aspect of the game as I mentioned above. To sum up it is easy to do, hard to catch and yields a decent reward. Low risk of being caught plus big reward requires that there be a harsh penalty when being caught, otherwise people will keep doing it.

The other reason for outrage is that the NFL commish suspended a coach for taking steroids to set an example (coaches being leaders of their teams are held to higher standard according to the commish).

I'm going to side with the people who don't understand the outrage. It's a stupid rule which should be broken at every chance. To me it seems like a fair part of the game. If you send plain text messages, you can't complain when they get read and recorded.

To address how this is different than holding:

I'm not claiming that they're identical in degree, just that they're the same kind of violation: taking acceptable practice a little bit too far. Taping signals can provide a big advantage (though I have a hard time imagining that it's as big a deal as some people are making out. Then again, as I said at the beginning, I never played organized football, so I may be underestimating the degree to which the game is play driven), to be sure, but holding also provides a big advantage.

To try a different analogy, it seems to me that what they did was something along the lines of overspending the salary cap by a million dollars or so, while people are talking about it like they conspired with the Mafia to fix games. One of those is a violation of a straightforward rule, the other is a violation of the foundational principles of sports in general.

They broke the rules, and they should pay a price for that. And that punishment has to come from the commissioner's office, because there's no in-game mechanism for handling this. But I don't see the punishment they got as being ridiculously light, as many talking heads are saying.

Bias #1: unusually for a Southern California resident who spent his first 15.9 years in New York City, I am a Patriots fan.

Bias #2: I generally prefer baseball (as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan) to Football.

Bias #3: I have papers and a book in progress on Mathematical Disinformation Theory.

Bottom line: We are witnessing evolution in Football signaling, signal-interception, disinformation, analysis, spoofing, and the like.

This is a Good Thing for several reasons:
(1) Arbitrages difference between Baseball and Football;
(2) Smarter football players/coaches;
(3) More papers and books to be published;
(4) More friendly arguments in sports bars;
(5) Opportunity for John Forbes Nash, Jr.;
(6) Big step towards Dave Brin's "Transparent Society."

Just to chime in briefly:

*I think one reason it was a big deal is that the Pats had been warned about this (there had been allegations about, IIRC, a Packers-Pats game in which this was said to have happened) and did it anyway; in essence, flipping a bird at the new, disciplinarian commissioner.

*As has been pointed out on another blog (www.groupnewsblog.net), this incident could call into question the honesty of games, which is a sure way to drive off the many gamblers who are a large part of the NFL's fan (and thus economic) base. I read recently that gambling on NFL games accounts for close to half the amount bet on sports in this country; if people stop betting on the NFL because they think that cheating's rampant, all of a sudden the NFL loses a lot of viewers and therefore revenue. As the man said in "Risky Business," "you don't f*ck with another man's livelihood." I think this is the big green aardvark in the room which no one wants to mention.