These comments from former Dolphin coach Jimmy Johnson ring the most true .
Cowher's not the only one who feels that way. Former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson talked about it in an interview on WFAN in September 2007, weeks after the Spygate story broke. Johnson, who won 2 Super Bowl rings during his tenure in Dallas, discussed his thoughts on what Belichick did, but also that videotaping signals was commonplace while he was a coach in the NFL.
"Oh please. I've said it on our show," said Johnson when asked if he was bothered by what Belichick did. "Eighteen years ago a scout for the Chiefs told me what they did, and he said what you need to do is just take your camera and you go and zoom in on the signal caller and that way you can sync it up. The problem is that if they're not on the press box side you can't do it from the press box, you have to do it from the sideline. This was 18 years ago."
Johnson said that the reason why the commissioner came down as hard as he did on New England was because of the fact a memo was sent out to stop that practice shortly before that it was discovered they were still doing it.
"No, no, I said it on the show. He was wrong for doing it for the simple reason that the league knew this was going on not just in New England but around the league," said Johnson. "And the league sent out the memorandum to all of the teams saying you cannot do this. And so that's when Bill Belichick was wrong. After he got the memorandum saying don't do it any more, he did it.
When asked if he ever stole signals, Johnson said, "Oh in a heartbeat, yeah. Yes I did."
"I did it with video and so did a lot of other teams in the league. Just to make sure that you could study it and take your time, because you're going to play the other team the second time around. But a lot of coaches did it, this was commonplace."