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NFL security confiscated a video camera and its tape from a New England Patriots employee on the team's sideline during Sunday's game against the Jets in a suspected spying incident, sources said.

The camera and its tape were placed in a sealed box and forwarded to the league office for investigation, the sources said.

"We don't have any comment," an NFL spokesman said Monday.

The Patriots' cameraman was suspected of aiming his camera at the Jets' defensive coaches who were sending signals to their unit on the field, the sources said. The league also is investigating some radio frequency issues that occurred during the game.

The league's competition committee could conduct a conference call about the incident, which violates NFL policy, and ultimately recommend a penalty that could cost the Patriots a future draft pick or picks if it verifies that the team was spying on the Jets.

"It's not their first time," a member of the committee, who did not wish to be identified, said.

"At this point, we have not been notified of the league's ruling," Belichick said in a statement. "Although it remains a league matter, I want to apologize to everyone who has been affected, most of all ownership, staff and players. Following the league's decision, I will have further comment."

thrill wrote:Everyone does this. They hire lip readers with binoculars for heaven's sake.

This isn't an issue.

thrill wrote:Everyone does this. They hire lip readers with binoculars for heaven's sake.

This isn't an issue.

thrill wrote:Everyone does this. They hire lip readers with binoculars for heaven's sake.

This isn't an issue.

clevername wrote:I really don't get all the hub bub.

So, because they videotape it we're supposed to believe the Pats are the only team in the league that tries to steal signs from the other team?

Socnorb11 wrote:Link?

Cheating in the NFL isn't what it once was. The league's institution of the K-ball program in recent years addressed the doctoring of footballs that was a routine practice of kickers and punters everywhere. And the pregame pat-down the officiating crew now gives offensive and defensive linemen eliminated the ability to grease up one's jersey in order to become too slick to contain.

But there are still some more subtle examples of surreptitious behavior going on in Roger Goodell's kingdom, if you know where to look. In talking with league sources, here are several areas where teams tend to go just over the line that separates strategy from subterfuge in seeking a competitive advantage:

1. Pictures are worth a thousand words: The "stealing'' of signs -- both on offense and defense -- is the area that's most often cited as fertile ground for cheating. The most common practice is for a team to videotape an opponent's signal-givers on the sideline, and later marry up those indications to the game tape in order to identify tendencies or patterns.

Though no disciplinary action by the league ever resulted, the Patriots last year were reportedly the impetus of a sternly written letter from the league office to all teams, reminding them that it was illegal for an advance scout or personnel official to bring a video recording device of any kind into the press box for the purposes of taping a potential opponent's signals or play-calling gestures from the sideline.

Teams have also been chastised for having a second camera in the press box-area video box, with one camera shooting the game action and the other one being trained on the opposing team's signal-givers. On offense, that's why coaches have taken to holding their play-calling charts in front of their mouths when they're sending in the play to the quarterback via the radio headset system.

On defense, teams have gone to having two different signal callers, with one being a dummy signaler and other being responsible for the "hot,'' or real, call. Other teams use different color wrist bands during a game, with the defensive captain switching to a different color before each series, and the defensive signal-caller calling formations and blitzes from a list that corresponds with that color.

"That type of sign-stealing goes on a ton in the league,'' said one NFL source who was both a former coach and player in the league. "From a coaching standpoint, you know who's signaling in the personnel on the opposing sideline, and then there's another guy making the play calls on the headset. Defenses used to watch the play-caller, and if a guy spoke for a real long time, that was usually a pass, because the calls take longer. A run is always a shorter call. So coaches shield their mouths when they're calling plays now. If you make your calls out in the open, the other team will steal your signals and your tendencies.''

2. De-briefing the former enemy: With the advent of free agency and coaching tenures getting shorter all the time, the movement of players and coaches from team to team is more prevalent than ever. And that means more information about an opponent's tendencies and play-calling is readily available and waiting to be mined.

One way that insight can be helpful is in the identifying of an opponent's calls at the line of scrimmage, from a first-hand source who played or coached for that team in the recent past.

"You try to get those false calls that teams like to use at the line,'' said one former player. "Player X or coach X who has been with that team might stop by the offensive or defensive meetings and say, 'Look for this if they say that. Or when the quarterback does this, look for that.' It can be very useful in some cases.'

3. One man's trash is another man's treasure: Head coaches in the NFL are by nature paranoid beings. And they're often control freaks to boot. And when it comes to the potential of giving away a competitive edge of any sort, they're absolutely maniacal about keeping things in house.

One former coach and player told me that many coaches now have their trash segregated and shredded independent of everyone else's at the team complex. Everything that can be controlled, is controlled, from who gets to watch practice to who's cleaning the team's building at night.

"The more money that's at stake, the more it's like spy versus spy,'' a league source said. "Coaches are always looking out for moles. They want to know who's in the building at night, who can see the depth chart on the greaseboard and who's emptying the trash? And you can't just be a mid-level paper-pusher in an organization and expect to come out and watch practice. That guy might have grown up in D.C. and is a lifelong Redskins fan.''

It's not just in their home environments that coaches seek to control the flow of information.

"On road trips, let's say you're going to the west coast and have a walk-through practice at the stadium on Saturday afternoon,'' the source said. "You're told not to leave anything behind. From cheat sheets for the players, to the tests we give players about the game plan on the flight out, to anything that might be of use to the opponent. Because if anything gets dropped, you can expect it will eventually find its way to the other team.

"Coaches don't trust people at the hotel on the road, or the people who pick you up on the bus and take you to the hotel or the stadium. Everything is scrutinized. To some coaches, every little detail matters.''

The bent toward intrigue can be so prevalent at times teams will go to the lengths of leaving a fake game plan or play-calling script behind at times, in order to throw an opponent off the trail and cost it needless time trying to decode a useless document. Teams have been known to run as many meaningless blitzes as possible when they play Tampa Bay in the preseason, because they know ever-thorough Bucs head coach Jon Gruden will feel the need to catalog and prepare for the possibility of seeing every one of them in the future.

4. The playbook's the thing: Since the dawn of time, coaches have been reminding players to keep an eye on their playbooks at all times. But they still occasionally fall into enemy hands, and can sometimes yield a treasure trove of material used for nefarious purposes, at least competitively speaking.

I was told of one recent visiting NFL player who was downstairs at his team's hotel the night before a game in St. Louis, and put his playbook down for a moment to sign an autograph for a kid. He forgot to pick it back up, and it somehow found its way to the Rams before game time.

"The playbook is a big one,'' said one former NFL player. "We were told to not even leave them out in the open in the locker room during the week. You'd get fined big time over a lost playbook. You don't get a mulligan on that one. Coaches harp on that all the time.''

Other league sources I talked to were more dubious about the real value of a playbook should it find its way into an opponent's hands.

"Most good teams don't give out everything in their playbook at the same time, at least not to every player,'' a source said. "I'll bet you the Patriots don't. They give you just what you have to have. And even if you get the playbook, you've got to know the calls. You've got to know what's hot in any particular route. It doesn't really matter if you know the plays. You've got to know the calls. You can hear Peyton Manning's signals at the line, but he changes what they mean all the time.''

5. Making the pick: Is it cheating when offensive coaches teach their receivers to set an illegal pick on a particular route while reminding them to make it look good and accidental? Like the old neighborhood play at second base on the double play in baseball, a receiver setting a pick in football usually won't get flagged unless his work is sloppy and looks egregiously illegal.

Make it appear like the pick was all but unavoidable, and most officials won't reach for the yellow hankie. Thus, it comes down to good technique and good coaching.

"You do get coached on how to make a pick look accidental,'' said a former player. "The offensive coordinator is always reminding the receivers how to set a good pick on this play and keep it looking like the defender ran into you.''