Last Thursday night, Amazon Prime broadcast a clear image of one side of Broncos coach Sean Payton’s call sheet. It was very easy to take a still image of the video and see the names of the plays he had selected for situations such as the two-minute offense and the red zone.
On Wednesday, Payton was asked about the close-up that gave up potentially sensitive information.
“I saw it,” Payton told reporters. “I don’t worry about it. When everyone sent that to me, it was like, this game is so spontaneous and fast. The language teams can look at — everything is on tape.
“That idea of signing a practice squad player off the other team right before you play them. The only benefit that would be [is on the] health of the team and in-depth information regarding if guys are healthy. It’s hard to take that information, for instance, and then bring it in the division and look at it and say, ‘Here are the two-minute [calls].’ There are a ton of things we change. Each night we have a new — not audible, but a term we use that we might [change]. Trying to give a defensive player [a heads up], that guy is going to look at you like you’re nuts. He going to say, ‘I have to play.’ I don’t think much of it, but I saw it.”
The same thing happened on Monday night, with a portion of Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy’s call sheet being easily seen.
These things are seen mainly because the coaches use their call sheets to prevent their lips from being read. They’re choosing to conceal the opportunity to figure out what they say to the quarterback for plainly revealing the contents of a document that most assume they would guard with their lives.
It’s apparently a non-issue. If it wasn’t, it should be easy to come up with a device for blocking the exposed side of the call sheet from being seen. Or, even better, the coach should put blatantly profane phrases on the exposed portion of the call sheet, such as “F—k you” or “eat shit.”
That would keep the images from ever showing up on TV.