Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell: 'You always guard yourself against' sign-stealing
Dan Campbell said the Detroit Lions and most other NFL teams try to guard against sign-stealing operations like the one involving the Michigan football program by regularly changing their audibles.
“You always guard yourself against them, and that’s probably the name of the game,” Campbell said Friday. “I think everybody’s looking for any advantage they can get, so you just have to have enough dummy signals and dummy audibles and things of that nature to where you keep them honest, they don’t entirely know what’s coming.”
Michigan football is under NCAA investigation for violating rules against off-campus, in-person scouting of future opponents.
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Connor Stalions, an analyst in the team’s recruiting department whose job duties include deciphering opponents’ signals, according to ESPN, was suspended Friday as part of the investigation, the university announced.
Stalions graduated from the United States Naval Academy and was a captain in the Marine Corps before joining Michigan’s staff in 2022, the network reported.
In the NFL, teams regularly send pro scouts to watch their future opponents play, and their reports are incorporated into game plans. But signal stealing is less of an issue in the NFL because teams use headset communication devices to relay offensive and defensive play calls.
Campbell said the Lions and other NFL teams do spend time trying to decipher audibles that are picked up on television microphones during the broadcast of games.
“We all look at that,” he said. “I mean that’s a — we have a number of guys that look at TV copies and everything else, just like they do. I mean they’re doing the same, every team’s doing it. See if you can pick up any little nugget, code words, quarterback says something, linebacker’s making a call, O-line, D-line. And so, any nugget you feel like you can pick up, you would like to use. But there again, there’s always — you’ll always sprinkle in, on both sides of the ball, dummy calls and that’s part of it.”
To keep opponents honest, Campbell said the Lions tweak their audibles weekly, but “not everything.”
The Lions (5-1) play the Baltimore Ravens (4-2) on Sunday at M&T Bank Stadium.
“There’ll be just a few things that we change every week,” he said. “Not everything, but enough to where if we feel like somebody’s getting a beat on us, we will, on both sides of the ball.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Dan Campbell explains how Detroit Lions guard against sign stealing
