The sign-stealing situation at Michigan is a major conversation at the moment around football. However, Jets QB Aaron Rodgers knows we could settle the whole thing by just getting with the times at the collegiate level and putting a mic in the helmet.
Rodgers provided this solution during his weekly appearance on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on Tuesday. He believes there’s no reason that college helmets shouldn’t have this feature and went back to retell the history of why they don’t already have it.
“That’s a great question,” said Rodgers. “I was watching the show earlier, I saw what Matt Rhule said, and I agree completely.”
“Between 2005 and 2008, there was a committee that would talk every single year about putting the microphone in the helmet,” Rodgers explained. “I’m not going to name names on coaches. But there was one, long-tenured head coach, who was also an offensive guy, who would give a dissertation about why it’s way too big of a competitive advantage to have a microphone on the defensive side. He was able to beat it back until my first year starting, which was 2008. They said, ‘You know what? To hell with that! Like, let’s just avoid this science deal that’s going on, let’s even things up, let’s put a microphone in the defensive headset’. So, I don’t see why they don’t do it.”
With the communications in the helmet, stealing signs would be all but a useless trick. Staffs could only do so much to scout an opponent in that way with essentially all of their calls going through the ears rather than with their eyes.
When you consider how modern the sport is too, Rodgers just can’t understand why this isn’t already the case. Since it’s essentially a mini-NFL already, he thinks the NCAA needs to move past yet another unimportant issue and solve a question that they should have answered by now.
“College football is, basically, professional football,” said Rodgers. “Most of the guys are getting paid – free agency is way better down there.”
“I think let’s just do away with any of these silly issues from the NCAA, which has a very questionable, own type of ethics they have,” Rodgers said. “Let’s just even it out and give them a microphone in the defensive helmet.”
Rodgers gives firm opinion on sign-stealing
Aaron Rodgers chalked up sign stealing to be part of the game of football.
In the wake of the Michigan sign-stealing allegations, Rodgers commented on the process, the rules at the college level, and whether or not it’s that big of a competitive advantage. From Rodgers’ perspective, there’s a lot that goes into competitive advantage, more than just sign stealing.
“I was in the old system in the old NFL before there was a headset, microphone, and the defensive headset. So stealing the signals was always a part of what was going on,” Rodgers said. “And there were certain guys over the years who had had that as a responsibility…(In college) I didn’t realize that you weren’t allowed to do advanced scouting, sending guys to another place to scout on them. I find that very interesting.”
“I think that there is, you know, one thing to think about. Number one, you have to get the signal, right? You have to see a signal. In college, it seems like there’s four or five guys sitting there … I would assume that a team would want to, you know, be careful and have multiple guys signaling … So there’s a lot that goes on … It’s not just this blanket like, oh my god, they got the signal, what a great advantage that is.”
Rodgers didn’t say it was cheating or not cheating but that it’s certainly something to investigate.
“I’m not saying it’s not (cheating). There’s some questionable ethical things about it for sure,” Rodgers said. “But you still gotta go out and execute and be able to react in the moment as they are in this formation, which means you’re gonna run this and, you know, then hope that they’re not gonna do any sort of adjustments to that specific play. “
“So there’s a lot that goes in, it’s not just so cut and dry. Like, cheater. They know every play. That’s why they stopped and it’s like, well, just there’s a little bit more to it than just that.”