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Curious about cuts and transfer of "secret" info

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oasis

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What prevents a cut player from spilling the beans, so to speak, when they sign with a new club?

What measures do teams put in place to prevent their playbook or (at the least) calls from being described to another team by a cut player?

This seems particularly relevant for the Phins on the offensive side of the ball this year as there is plenty of intrigue surrounding the offense - from specific plays to just general approach with Pat White, etc. Say Wilford (for example) gets cut during camp. The Pats quickly nab him. Does Belichick sit him down and have him tell all? Does it work like that?

If so, do you expect teams (particularly division rivals) to pounce on our cut and/or practice squad players? And this year, we'll be cutting better players compared to last year.

Discuss!
 
This happens all the time and its the nature of the game. Some people have professionalism some don't. Its probably up to the player in the end. Bilacheat does not have athletic profesionalism so I can see him doing this quite often. But the argumet against it is the you always have game tape so that should be enough. The main advantage is in audibles or little hints here and there. Also coordinators and coaches change all the time so that keeps things random. I dont think it is tooooo big of an advantage but I bets it's one of the biggest reason why teams never(rarely) trade within the division.
 
nothing prevents it.. there are no rules in place.. a player can divulge anything ant everything they know in order to help their team win on sundays... You think Heath Evans, or Larry Izzo, or Sammy Morris didnt help the Rats by giving them fin info? Its the name if the game.
 
dolpns13 said:
nothing prevents it.. there are no rules in place.. a player can divulge anything ant everything they know in order to help their team win on sundays... You think Heath Evans, or Larry Izzo, or Sammy Morris didnt help the Rats by giving them fin info? Its the name if the game.
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You got that right that's what rats do they spill the beans!!!!!!!
 
I think we've only cut one player so far? And the only play he ever knew was fumble. I'm not worried.
 
oasis said:
What prevents a cut player from spilling the beans, so to speak, when they sign with a new club?

What measures do teams put in place to prevent their playbook or (at the least) calls from being described to another team by a cut player?

This seems particularly relevant for the Phins on the offensive side of the ball this year as there is plenty of intrigue surrounding the offense - from specific plays to just general approach with Pat White, etc. Say Wilford (for example) gets cut during camp. The Pats quickly nab him. Does Belichick sit him down and have him tell all? Does it work like that?

If so, do you expect teams (particularly division rivals) to pounce on our cut and/or practice squad players? And this year, we'll be cutting better players compared to last year.

Discuss!
Click to expand...

It happens all the time and there is nothing to prevent guys from giving all they know about thier former team to the new team. This is why you see teams not wanting to trade within the division.

Yes, it works exactly like that (Wilford example)

Remember Kieth Byers? He was very nearly singlehandedly responsible for us loseing a very big game to the Pats, because they had all our signals and audibles.

Lots of times teams will sign a guy, get all his info and dump him.
 
crazyfin said:
You got that right that's what rats do they spill the beans!!!!!!!
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How can you be a rat if you are not a part of the organization?

You expect Joe Schmo that made rookie minimum and got cut halfway through the season to be loyal to the team that cut him? Seriously? Would you be loyal to the company that fired you?
 
Ok, so you guys took the low-hanging fruit. Fair enough. I pretty much assumed that's how it works, but I wanted to get into a more in-depth discussion of some of the nuances - what we may do to counter, for example. I don't think we cut a player, let him get signed by the Pats, and say, "oh well, that's how it goes!" Surely, there must be some countermeasures? Do you think the most creative installs don't happen until after the big cuts?

And another big question is, do you think it's a bigger deal than normal given the secrecy around our offense, the ways in which we plan to use Pat White, etc.? Do you think Belichick is worried thinking what we might do? Do you think our division rivals are more likely to sign our cut players this year given the creativity and flexibility of our offense?
 
oasis said:
Ok, so you guys took the low-hanging fruit. Fair enough. I pretty much assumed that's how it works, but I wanted to get into a more in-depth discussion of some of the nuances - what we may do to counter, for example. I don't think we cut a player, let him get signed by the Pats, and say, "oh well, that's how it goes!" Surely, there must be some countermeasures? Do you think the most creative installs don't happen until after the big cuts?

And another big question is, do you think it's a bigger deal than normal given the secrecy around our offense, the ways in which we plan to use Pat White, etc.? Do you think Belichick is worried thinking what we might do? Do you think our division rivals are more likely to sign our cut players this year given the creativity and flexibility of our offense?
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It's lowhanging fruit becase it's just not that big a concept to get one's head around. If you cut a player, the first thing you ask yourself as an organization is "How bad can he hurt us?". Once you've determined that, you take the next step to counter that, which is changeing whatever you can as quickly as you can.

We do it. The Pats do it. Everybody does it. It's just a chess game.
 
All teams have contingency plans for this in EVERY Sport ...
Many are surprisingly simple. Also, if you spy the wrong play, it will hurt you = Counter Espionge!! lol & this goes on too!!

i.e.
In college football, common to see 2 or more signaling the plays in at the same time. They're all signaling different plays. One is the true play, the others are "obfuscation plays". The the "live" signaler switches from person to person ... so you can't key on 1 person.

Counter Espionage ... I've seen a coach go up to a signaler & whisper to him ... surprise its a dummy play to trick the other side into the wrong formation.

Huge Factoid as jocks will know ... anything complex will confuse your own guys more than the opponents ... jeez, that's why they say the snap number 2 or more times in the huddle!!

Also, don't forget that a play that's called may have 10-20 variations depending how the D lines up ... and might audible out.

Also, simple schemas are surprisingly complex to de-code. Here's a simplified example of one of my teams used to use ... so easy no one misses the call & virtually impossible to break. We often used Red, White, & Blue and the LAST Number was the play on the wristband.
So .... Red89, Blue19,White9 = Play 9 on the wristband

But SEVERAL guys would be shouting numbers ... Orange 93, Black111, Green12, BLUE19 (play 9), red11 yada, yada

Bottomline: You watch how they line up & watch their tendencies ... this is what Zach Thomas did watching film. You look for "tells" = something a player does to tip off a play. i.e. OL looks to see where a LB is that he must block, you know that tendancy, now you know the play ... you bark out a Defensive Call & maybe even a Call of the type of play you think it is ... that was Zach's job. NOW, you don't screw up with bad de-codes & waste your time code-breaking when you should be using your couple seconds eye-balling the opponents to figure out what they're gonna do.
THIS is what the CHEATRIOTS did ... associate formations with plays & tendencies.

Most love to have little smarties decode their calls ... you can use it to give them a good fluxxing by getting them in the wrong formation!! ... just like the Wildcat did!!
 
Several Dolphins have complained of 'missing time'. My theory is Belicheat had them kidnapped and hypnotized with a chip surgically implanted in their head. But Omar has yet to confirm.
 
You are correct before the BIG cuts most of the learning and drilling is just basic stuff until then.
You see it every year the turk comes through picks up the player play book and cuts them. The team still uses many of those basic formations but change the codes that they were using in preseason to implement it. Plus now you also have the microphones in the players helmets so that helps eliminate the hand signals from the side lines being hijacked from another team. You can be sure the coaches mix it up just in case.
Now if you loose a veteran player during the season according to what position he is playing it could affect you more of course. You can bet that they change the signals when they play against their old player on a new team. Even though they change signals etc it is almost impossible to hide formations but as someone brought earlier every team can see the other teams formations on film.
Regardless the preseason cuts are not that big of a deal and most of those players only get insight to basic portion of the package that most teams all run anyway.
 
Dear America: Please learn the difference between 'lose' and 'loose'. You are killing me.
 
oasis said:
Ok, so you guys took the low-hanging fruit. Fair enough. I pretty much assumed that's how it works, but I wanted to get into a more in-depth discussion of some of the nuances - what we may do to counter, for example. I don't think we cut a player, let him get signed by the Pats, and say, "oh well, that's how it goes!" Surely, there must be some countermeasures? Do you think the most creative installs don't happen until after the big cuts?

And another big question is, do you think it's a bigger deal than normal given the secrecy around our offense, the ways in which we plan to use Pat White, etc.? Do you think Belichick is worried thinking what we might do? Do you think our division rivals are more likely to sign our cut players this year given the creativity and flexibility of our offense?
Click to expand...

There are no countermeasures. If a guy isnt good enough to carry on your roster, then you let him go. Period. If another team signs him, they have to cut someone from their roster, which means they probably weren't that good of a team to begin with.

Bottom line, it really doesnt matter if they know what we are going to do. In fact, every team we will play will have seen 90% of our plays, and vice versa. Both teams know exactly what they other team is going to do. They just don't know when they are going to do it. And they still have to execute.

I am not worried about that one bit. I am more worried about players who are in position to make a play (tackle, catch, throw, etc) to make that play. Thats whats important. Not signing a player because you think he can give you a "heads up" on what the other team is doing.
 
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