New York Post, Sunday, October 25, 2020
nypost.com
By Ryan DunleavyTo play offense in the NFL in
2020, keep your playbook near a
dictionary, a map of the United
States and a list of baby names.
COVID-19 restrictions mean
no crowds at most games, no se-
crets on the field and no garbled
quarterback pre-snap barking on
the television. It’s not just defen-
sive players who can more
clearly hear every word at the
line of scrimmage: Couch potato
fans — and opponents — watch-
ing the broadcast hear enough
off microphones to earn a de-
crypting degree.
So, changing code words for
audibles and cue words in the
cadence are more important
than ever for an offense.
“That’s tricky, and we try to
monitor it every week,” Giants
quarterbacks coach Jerry Schu-
plinski said. “You can’t rear-
range and have a new term for
your guys every week. If you are
not careful, they have those mics
coming up over the huddle and
you can almost make out the
damn huddle call if you know
what you are listening for.”Rams quarterback Jared Goff
sounded thirsty as he screamed
for “Water! Water!” earlier this
season. Derek Carr trolled his
Raiders coach Jon Gruden with
an audible call named after his
wife. Jersey sales of Giants great
Victor Cruz should skyrocket
considering the countless times
Daniel Jones shouts “Blue80!” in
any given game.
Wait a second: Do the Raiders
really have a “Cindy Gruden”
play call? Not necessarily.
“We would watch back TV
copies just to see what words
were apparent on the broadcast
to make sure we changed them
up the following week,” said
former NFL quarterback Brady
Quinn, co-host of the SiriusXM
Blitz. “It could be anything as
simple as any boy’s name is in-
side-zone run to the right, girl’s
name is inside-zone run to the
left. Or cities and states. Or
words with ‘R’ in them versus
words with ‘L.’ ”
Thank the mandatory network
microphones taped to the backs
of centers and guards for the en-
hanced television audio and the
forced “heightened conscious-ness” of verbiage, as Giants
coach Joe Judge put it. Teams
can pump in artificial crowd
noise up to 70 decibels in fan-
less stadiums, per league rules.
“It’s damn-near-dead silent
before the snap,” Jets linebacker
Jordan Jenkins said. “Some
teams give fake calls and will
use a run call in an obvious pass-
ing down. It’s something you
can pick up on, but you have to
do a fair amount of studying be-
cause sometimes you might
think, ‘He said this, this play is
coming,’ and then you look like a
jack if it’s a totally opposite
p l ay.”
Former Buccaneers quarter-
back Chris Simms remembers
thinking the Panthers were at-
tuned to all his audibles. A few
days later, Showtime’s “Inside
the NFL” aired Panthers sideline
audio discussing the signals, so
he used those same words to
mean something completely dif-
ferent in the rematch.
“Those are the mental gym-
nastics you do to screw over the
other team,” Simms said. “But
it’s very hard to pin signals to
teams. It’s not as easy as base-