NFL: Pats' fallout may lead to defensive audio helmets

   By Paul Domowitch
   Philadelphia Daily News

   PHILADELPHIA  --  NFL  teams  have  been  trying to steal each other's
   offensive and defensive signals since the days of leather helmets.

   Vikings  coach  Brad Childress readily admitted earlier this week that
   his  backup  quarterbacks  regularly  spend part of the game trying to
   steal  the  other  team's  defensive  signals.  He  likened  it to the
   practice in baseball of a runner on second trying to steal a catcher's
   signs.

   There's  nothing  in  the NFL rulebook that prohibits what the Vikings
   do.  But  there  most  definitely  is  something  in the rulebook that
   prohibits  what  Patriots  coach Bill Belichick did last Sunday in his
   team's 38-14 win over the Jets when he had a club employee use a video
   camera to try to steal the Jets' defensive signals.

   It  was  spelled  out  in  a  memo from NFL vice president of football
   operations  Ray  Anderson  to  Belichick  and the rest of the league's
   coaches  and  general  managers  just  a  few days before the Patriots
   played the Jets.

   "Videotaping  of  any type, including but not limited to the taping of
   an  opponent's  offensive  and defensive signals, is prohibited on the
   sidelines,  in the coaches' booth, in the locker room, or at any other
   location  accessible  to club staff members during the game," the memo
   said.

   Yesterday,  Belichick  and  the  Patriots found out the price they are
   going  to  have  to pay for making that illegal sideline video. It was
   steep,  but  it  could  have  been  a  lot steeper. Commissioner Roger
   Goodell fined Belichick $500,000 and the Patriots another $250,000 for
   violating league policy. More significantly, the Patriots must forfeit
   their  first-round  pick  in  the 2008 draft if they make the playoffs
   this  season,  or  their  second- and third-round picks if they don't.
   Goodell stopped short of suspending Belichick.

   It's  hard to keep up with the rapid-fire advances in technology. What
   was state-of-the-art Wednesday is obsolete today.

   "I  was  on  the competition committee for a long time and we talked a
   lot  about  the electronics involved in the game," Seahawks coach Mike
   Holmgren  told  reporters this week. "There were rules set up. The way
   technology  is  going  right  now,  you could probably set up a lot of
   things to take advantage of teams. So you just say, `OK, these are the
   rules. Let's all play by the rules."'

   Belichick  didn't  feel  like playing by the rules, and now he will be
   remembered  as  the  guy who cheated rather than the guy who won three
   Super Bowls.

   Thanks  to  Belichick, it's a pretty safe bet that the league's owners
   will approve the use of a helmet radio to receive defensive plays next
   year,  much  like the one a quarterback uses to received the offensive
   plays. That will effectively eliminate the stealing of hand signals.

   The proposal came up just two votes short of passage last March.

   "Because  of  this  issue,  I  think  (it will sway some votes)," said
   Holmgren,  who  voted against it last winter. "We'll see. I don't know
   how I'd vote if we voted again this time."

   Giants  coach  Tom  Coughlin,  who previously was against the use of a
   radio helmet on defense, now is in favor of it.

   "I  think  it would solve a lot of these (signal-stealing) issues," he
   said.  "Initially,  I  was  not  in favor of it. But I changed my mind
   because of this very issue. It would clean all of this up. There would
   be  no signs. So you wouldn't need three guys (screening the defensive
   playcaller when he sends in the play)."