The Colts Have Given Bill Belichick the Best Spying Device He's Ever Had for This Week's Game
Frigging Bill Belichick. The man who not only coined the phrase "No days off!" but also turned it into a rallying cry for the ages:
… is living the catch phrase on his team's long-awaited bye week.
Even while semi-relaxing with his radiant ladyfriend Linda Holliday and his faithful companion/assistant GM Nike on Nantucket this weekend, he actually found a new way to scout the Colts for their game Saturday night. In fact, he's gathering intel on Indy using cameras and listening devices. Not in the way Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy always thought he did, by bugging the visitors locker room. But with the help of the Colts themselves. And the NFL.
From his press conference earlier today:
On if he and his staff watch Hard Knocks when studying opponents:
BB: We have people in our organization that scout the games in advance of when we play the teams. Starting two or three weeks before we play, they start to really track those teams and see how injuries have affected, if they have shifted their style of play, or whatever's happened with the team. We track almost everything those teams, any team that we play does. Depending on the relevance or importance of that information, at some point, it gets relayed down the line. Yeah. We have somebody that studies each team, whether it's any relevant comments or information that we think we think is relevant to the preparation for the team. That could be shared. Sure.
Fucking hilarious. The entire league has been chasing ghosts with this team for at least 15 years, with the Colts leading the way. Imagining hidden cameras and bugs, spies up in the hills above practice fields and videos of the back of the Bengals sideline. These Scooby Gang of idiots has been so paranoid about the Patriots always having an extra edge they've wasted countless man hours worrying about it, searching for the electronics, and forcing the NFL to investigate it that there's hardly a person among them who can remember a time when they didn't think they were being spied on.
So what do the Colts do? Now that the Patriots are once again in their rightful place atop the AFC and Indy is desperately trying to keep their grip on the final Wild Card spot? They invite the cameras and microphones into their facility. After trying to stay so secretive for so long so as not to give Belichick and his staff any more information than they have to, they give him full access to meetings, practices and private strategy discussions. He now knows more about their inner workings than if he employed a crack team of master spies. All for the price of an HBO Max subscription. Or, more likely, borrowing Steve Belichick's email and password.
I'm not saying this guarantees New England rolls into Lucas Oil and wins. Just that, if there's any justice in the world, that's exactly what will happen. The hypocrisy from the Colts organization on this is off the charts. After years upon years of explaining away how Pats defenders knew Manning's signals, how Ty Law was running Colts receivers routes better than they did, or how the Patriots crushed the Andrew Luck teams so many times by saying it was all due to some tiny competitive advantage brought by electronic surveillance, they're now handing a treasure trove of video over to Belichick to do with what he will. Any team dumb enough to do that deserves to get blown out of their own building.
And in case you're thinking that Indy had no choice, there was a follow up question about what would happen if "Hard Knocks" ever came to Foxboro
On if he would be careful of what he shared if his team was on Hard Knocks:
BB: There are a lot of reasons why I wouldn't be excited about it.
In other words, he would say nothing, share nothing and reveal nothing. Except probably total misinformation, just to mess with every head in the NFL. Then conduct all his real meetings in closets, basements and toilet stalls where the cameras can't follow. Or out on his boat away from the microphones like a mob boss. The Colts are either too dumb or too interested in getting on TV to do likewise. Which is to say, they're paranoid, but just not the right kind of paranoid.
Patriots by 100.