Belichick risked his Reputation
on Questionable Information
A
reputation is the hardest thing to build and the easiest thing to lose. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has bet his on
the word of Bill Belichick, a proven cheater and suspected liar. By closing the book on SpyGate, Goodell has
in effect accepted the word of Belichick that those games that the league has
seen tapes on (including those that the league destroyed) were the only ones
that were taped.
By Bill Smith
Goodell
needs to tell us which teams and games were on those tapes he destroyed. However, if the Colts were not seen on any of
the tapes, then we know that there are more ahead and Goodell should proceed
very cautiously.
The thing
that must make us question Belichick's sanity is why he would violate the rules
for a source of information that the value of which is at best
questionable. As early as 1970, we were
using a computer to give us a breakdown of the tenancies of our opponents. We set our offensive and defensive game plans
based on the tenancies of our opponent.
On offense,
we would have the down and distance with the percentage of times they called
each play from a given formation. Our
chart would look something like this:
Third 10+
3 wide 72%
(% of times they would use 3 wides at this down/distance)
21%
7-9-9 (refers to the patterns that the x y and z receivers ran)
19%
draw play
18%
9-9-9
On defense,
we would have the same thing showing blitz percentage. We even had history on how an opponent
defense would respond to a shift by our offense from specific formations. These records would be updated from every
game tape we got and every game we played against them.
Every NFL
team has been doing this same thing for decades. The point is that the actual history of a
team under a given coaching staff provides much more reliable information than
any tape of hand signals could ever hope to equal. With the ability to tape coverage every game
of every team, such statistics are even more accurate.
Given the
football IQ of Belichick, we can not help but wonder why he would risk
violating league rules to get something of such questionable value. The only possible explanation is Belichick's
audacity. Those that believe they are
the smartest ones in the room often feel that they are above the law or in this
case, rules of the league.
At least in
this case, Belichick was not the smartest guy in the room.
Bill Smith is a
former coach of several semi-pro teams and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for http://BrutusReport.com. He has also published several novels on http://ebooks-library.com/index.cfm and
edits http://fryingpanpolitics.blog.com