BaBastage
Footballguy
Mad_Sweeney In the Pat's Taping thread brought up a good point that it would be fairly trivial to modify a video recording device to broadcast locally in real time.
Without speculating on whether or not that's what the Patriots were doing, it does bring up interesting questions (at least, interesting for me) on the future of cheating (in this particular case the NFL.) What other technology is out there / could be developed that would be used for cheating? What would be the defense against it? How will it affect the game? Will "cheating" become tolerated / "part of the game" like in baseball?
Here are two to that come to mind:
#1) Real-time knowledge of play calling. I agree that given the resources these teams have, it would be pretty straightforward to broadcast in real time. Because the defense changes their plays from game to game, it may take a few series, or a half to crack the new code, but after that, you'd have a huge advantage. The countertactic would be to change your play calling scheme more often, or even better yet, find a way to send disinformation to make the opponent think a different play was being called.
#2) How about a tiny voice-receiver implanted under the skin behind the ear in a quarterback (or any player), that uses cellular frequencies? This would allow someone to be in constant communication with the player, and have it be completely unnoticeable. (Unless they ban all cell phone usage at the event, but good luck with that) If you didn't know the opposing team's play, would it still give you an advantage?
I'm keeping the tinfoil hat off for the time being. What say you?
Without speculating on whether or not that's what the Patriots were doing, it does bring up interesting questions (at least, interesting for me) on the future of cheating (in this particular case the NFL.) What other technology is out there / could be developed that would be used for cheating? What would be the defense against it? How will it affect the game? Will "cheating" become tolerated / "part of the game" like in baseball?
Here are two to that come to mind:
#1) Real-time knowledge of play calling. I agree that given the resources these teams have, it would be pretty straightforward to broadcast in real time. Because the defense changes their plays from game to game, it may take a few series, or a half to crack the new code, but after that, you'd have a huge advantage. The countertactic would be to change your play calling scheme more often, or even better yet, find a way to send disinformation to make the opponent think a different play was being called.
#2) How about a tiny voice-receiver implanted under the skin behind the ear in a quarterback (or any player), that uses cellular frequencies? This would allow someone to be in constant communication with the player, and have it be completely unnoticeable. (Unless they ban all cell phone usage at the event, but good luck with that) If you didn't know the opposing team's play, would it still give you an advantage?
I'm keeping the tinfoil hat off for the time being. What say you?