During Monday Night Football's Saints-Bears game, ESPN's cameras got a close-up shot of Sean Payton's play sheet.
Interesting how he has concept names (Spot, Hank) above specific calls RT @therealbcherry Sean Payton's play sheet pic.twitter.com/nOLrsAF3LE
— Chris B. Brown (@smartfootball) December 16, 2014
Payton seemed unconcerned.
"Pretty soon they'll be in our bench area helping out with the play calls," he joked on Wednesday. "I don't think there's much to it. There's a lot of terminology. But I am kind of surprised it showed up on the TV screen. … I wouldn't put it on if I was ESPN."
That said, Payton doesn't think there's much an opponent can do with the information.
"You look at their terminology," he said. "There's nothing that it's really giving you. ... It's 50 different names of plays, they're not numbered in any particular order."
The bigger issue, according to Payton, are microphones picking up the quarterback's cadence.
"That's significant," he said. "That topic, we would have a database now. … Shoot Peyton Manning's doing a commercial because of it. That's much more significant than what we're discussing, in regards to get-offs … the tempo of a cadence, how it sounds, when a play's changed. That's different now. That's something we're adjusting with, everyone has to."
In related news, we remain partial to Rob Ryan's play sheets.
