You might have spotted the coaching staff covering their mouths while speaking into their headsets or to another player if you’ve ever watched a NFL game. Exactly why is that so?
There have been many stories of espionage in the National Football League, but the most recent ones may be the most clever—yet peculiar—of all since they entail reading lips.
Some coaches and scouts are increasingly using the technique of lip reading to pick up on the signals of the other team and predict the next play.
More coaches and assistants are covering their mouths when calling plays to the quarterback or the defense utilizing the radio system that pumps play into the players’ helmets in order to prevent lip reading.
When speaking to players, coaches cover their mouths to prevent opposition players and coaches from lip-reading what they are saying. In baseball, meetings between the pitcher and catcher take place on the mound.
Without further ado, let’s get into it!
Why Do NFL Coaches Cover Their Mouths During the Game?
The head coach must make the appropriate decisions to put his team in the best possible position to win the game in front of thousands of screaming spectators, TV cameras, and players from the other team on the sidelines and in the press box.
Therefore, it is crucial to take precautions to make sure the opposing team is unaware of the plays a team will run.
Therefore, if you see a coach covering their mouth with a hand or a clipboard while watching an NFL game, know that they are doing so for a reason: they don’t want the opposing team to read their lips.
The New York Times published a story in 2001 that explored the NFL’s then-recent lip-reading strategy for trying to win a football game.
During a game, the opposing team’s coach would use this strategy while a coach was instructing his quarterback on the play via headset in an effort to learn the other team’s signals and predict the following play.
In the NFL, signal stealing is a long-established art. However, the most recent innovation is quite odd, and more teams are attempting it.
There have been some persistent rumors. But if someone can accomplish it, all the greater credit to them because it appears impossible.
Coaches told the outlet that cameras zoom in as plays are being called, even though it might be more challenging for a spy to read a coach’s lips while the game is in progress.
In order to match up the play called with the game recording, other teams can use this information in future contests by reading the coach’s lips.
The experts claim that offensive plays are harder to steal than defensive ones. Offensive plays have a far lengthier and more complicated vocabulary when reading lips. But defensive play-calling is typically far more condensed.
Although it might seem a bit extreme, it is crucial to ensure that the coaches of the opposing side cannot read a coach’s lips.
One NFL assistant coach at the time admitted to the NY Times that he had used this technique to steal several dozen plays from five or six other teams.
The unnamed coach reportedly remarked, “Cover your mouth, and your plays are safe.” But if you’re careless, you’re fair game.
While NFL coaches will cover their lips to avoid prying eyes with their hands or a clipboard, some coaches may just cover their mouths to minimize background noise.
In any case, it appears that coaches will continue to employ this strategy when watching professional football games.
Two NFL Spying Techniques
Simpler methods were employed in several vintage spying methods. The Giants once asserted that rival teams had their assistant coaches stay in a New Jersey hotel on Route 3 that overlooked their practice field so they could observe the plays the Giants worked on.
Lip reading has raised the art of espionage to a whole new level of expertise.
This kind of surveillance operates in two different ways;
1. Although less dependable, the first approach actually occurs throughout the game.
Imagine that Sean Payton, the offensive coordinator for the Giants, calls the play to quarterback Kerry Collins from the sideline via a radio system that delivers Payton’s voice into Collins’ helmet.
An opponent coach or scout is perched high in the coaches’ box and using powerful binoculars to read Payton’s lips as he calls the play.
Payton typically reads the play slowly so that the quarterback can comprehend it, giving the spy time actually to absorb what is being said.
The spy records the play call on paper and waits for it to come up again.
A coach may utilize the same play call several times in a game and numerous times throughout a season. The spy in the skies transmits down to the sideline coaches when he hears the identical play called, alerting them to warn the players.
Of course, it is a big tactical advantage for a defense to know what an offensive will do.
However, there is one issue with this specific lip-reading method. A game is too chaotic for something like that to be pulled off repeatedly.
Perhaps one or two plays are stolen in this manner. Maybe. Because too much time has passes by the time opponent coach reads lips, tells the coaches on the sideline what he thinks the other side will do, and then instructs the players.
Coaches insist that it has nevertheless occurred, occasionally with great success.
2. According to trainers, another scenario makes lip reading considerably simpler and involves television.
Networks frequently feature coaches calling plays in incredibly close-up. The few coaches who do not cover their mouths during games are caught on camera by the opposition, who later reads their lips.
Scouts have also occasionally videotaped opposition coaches while seated in an upper deck box or standing on the opposing sideline. Coaches claimed that when they later reviewed the film, they slowed it down to make it simpler to grasp the target’s statements.
Once the spy has matched the play called to what the defense is doing on the field, they have successfully stolen a call. The data heisted may be helpful if the teams compete again.
How Does the NFL Staff Protect Themselves from Spying?
In the NFL, your name need not be Bill Belichick for an opponent to harbor misgivings about you.
If you have the title “head coach,” you can very well assume that the other team will be watchful of everything you do or might do in an effort to give yourself an advantage. Why? because your rival is acting in a similar manner.
Because of his team’s 2007 videotaping controversy, Belichick will always be the first person brought up when the subject of NFL espionage is brought up.
By recording the defensive signals of the New York Jets, his New England Patriots were caught in flagrant violation of league regulations, and commissioner Roger Goodell penalized Belichick and the Patriots accordingly.
However, rival teams have held grudges against one another for as long as there has been football, accusing one another of trying to steal or steal whatever information they can.
Teams began defending themselves in the following ways:
- The offense started calling plays in the most intimate setting possible, known as the huddle.
- Audibles are transmitted in code and by different body gestures.
- When calling plays from the sidelines, coaches cover their mouths with playsheets.
- Practices are often held outside behind high gates covered in tarpaulin and are either completely or partially off-limits to anyone not affiliated with the team.
- In an effort to learn even the slightest piece of information about the competition, assistant coaches are compensated for watching hours upon hours of videotape and browsing the Internet.
- Assistants in “quality assurance” look at their own team’s patterns to identify what it might be giving up to other teams.
- Teams now hand out bound copies of the game plan to players rather than handing out loose sheets of paper that can be easily left behind in the opposing team’s dressing room and never thrown into the trash (which the opposition routinely checks for such material). Bound copies are collected (typically by a security staff member) and locked away before players take the field.
Because defensive signals are no longer transmitted through hand/body movement, it is now impossible to steal them, even with a video camera.
A microphone-to-helmet-headset device is used by defensive coaches to communicate with a defender, just like on offense.
That essentially eliminated the need for several assistant coaches throughout the league who were hired mainly for their capacity to spy on players’ hand signals through the coaches’ box’s binoculars.
