Some Are Fuzzy on Taping's Benefits

Patriots' Advantage Called Overstated

How much did the New England Patriots benefit from videotaping the play signals of opposing teams in violation of NFL rules?

The question returned to the forefront of the NFL's offseason controversy after former Patriots employee Matt Walsh said Wednesday that the tapes provided a significant advantage on the way to winning three Super Bowls. After meeting with Walsh, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) called for an independent investigation into the matter.

But some coaches and players around the league did not agree yesterday with Walsh's contention.

"Is it an advantage? Yes, it's an advantage," former NFL coach Dan Reeves said. "Does it taint what they did? Yeah, it probably does. It shouldn't have happened. They're good enough that they didn't have to do that. But it still boils down to players and executing what's called. Anyone who says that's the only reason or that's the main reason they won three Super Bowls doesn't know what they're talking about."

The head coach of one NFL team, however, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic within the league, disagreed.

"Are you kidding?" he said. "It's huge. If I know what the defense is going to do on every play, I'll score 35 points a game, too."

Walsh, a former Patriots video assistant who made the comments to HBO, said that when the Patriots implemented the program at the outset of the 2000 season, a backup quarterback would learn the opponent's play signals from the tapes and would stand next to Charlie Weis, then the team's offensive coordinator, on the sideline to pass along the defensive play call. Weis then would relay that information, along with the Patriots' offensive play call, to quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Walsh said he was told by a quarterback that the Patriots were right about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' defensive play calls 75 percent of the time in the opening game in 2000 after taping the Buccaneers' signals during a preseason game between the teams.

"If I was calling the plays and I have the defense, I could put us in a better position," Reeves said in a telephone interview yesterday. "It helped Charlie Weis. But they still had to execute the play."

Reeves said that, because of time constraints, the Patriots wouldn't get much benefit if their offensive players huddled first and then went to the line of scrimmage. But if the Patriots used a no-huddle offense, as Walsh said they did with increasing regularity, the benefit would be greater.

"A smart defensive coordinator will wait until the last possible second to send in the defensive signal," Reeves said. "If that happens and you don't get the signal until there's eight or 10 seconds left on the play clock, there's nothing you can do. That doesn't help you. So what you do is, you go right to the line of scrimmage. You don't huddle. You might snap the ball at any time, so they can't wait to signal in the defense. You force them to make the call early. Now you've got 25 seconds left on the play clock, and there's something you can do with that."

But former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms said that knowing what an opponent is going to do on a play isn't always enough.

"I've been in games where we knew every signal, every call by the other team, and we still lost," Simms said by telephone yesterday. "We had the San Diego Chargers' signals in 1980. We knew every signal. We knew every play. We were calling out what they were going to do: 'Here comes this. Here comes that.' They still scored 44 points.

"I'm not protecting anybody," Simms said. "I've played in the league. I was involved in some of that kind of stuff. But I just don't know. I'm not involved in talk radio. I'm not gonna say history would have been changed. I've just got to hear more. I've got to hear it from some player, from someone involved, that it had an effect."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said during a news conference Tuesday in New York that "it's impossible to know the specifics about how much impact it has." But he said he continues to believe the impact on games was relatively small because all teams know their coaching signals can be monitored legally, without videotaping equipment, and take the proper precautions.

Reeves said the difference is that taping the signals enabled the Patriots to be much more certain they were right about what was being called the next time they played that team.

But the Patriots managed to win 17 straight games last season after they were punished by Goodell, and former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann said the work of Walsh and other camera operators had little to do with the franchise's on-field prosperity.

"I think it's a lot being made about nothing," Theismann said. "A guy like Trent Dilfer played on five different teams. He had five different playbooks. Why do you think coaches cover their mouths when they're calling the plays? People are aware you're looking at them. Why do you think coaches spend 100 hours a week looking at film? If winning was this easy, no one would work so hard.

"The reason people are doing this is because it's the New England Patriots. If it was the Cincinnati Bengals or the Cleveland Browns, no one would care. They'd say, 'They needed all the help they could get.' At some point, it stops. Fines have been levied. We do not need independent investigations. We do not need Congress involved. Everybody in this sport tries to gain a competitive advantage by looking at signs. What the Patriots did was unforgivable in terms of filming. That's illegal, and they were punished for it. Now let's get on with our lives."