Patriots Week has ended and the NFL season can finally begin. Just one day before the Pittsburgh Steelers coach's headsets broadcast the New England Patriots home radio broadcast instead of the vital communications that NFL coaches share continuously during a game, Mike Shanahan was interviewed by Dan Patrick of The Dan Patrick Show.
Shanahan was hounded several times by Patrick, who seemed to be actively attempting to get Shanahan to say something about the Patriots or Bill Belichick directly.
Shanahan, who owned a 5-3 overall record against Belichick as a head coach of the Denver Broncos, was quick with the draw, "You hear rumors here and there, but you know, it's easy to negate that-- to have a plan, if you think someone is doing [stealing signals or spying] then you make an adjustment and it's not a big adjustment."
So, it's not a big deal according to the former Broncos head coach there were 10 to 15 teams that he felt concerned with. He would even go as far as having the locker room swept for listening devices or bugs, "It wasn't really New England, I did it with a lot of different teams. You know, we'd have a look in the locker rooms and we'd have people sweep the locker rooms [for listening devices] and just make sure that there weren't any type of devices or anything along those lines. It wasn't with New England, but it was with a number of teams in the National Football League just to make sure that they didn't get an advantage, same thing on the sideline."
Twice going out of his way to point out that it wasn't the Patriots he was concerned about, but just under half of the rest of the league.
Let me remind you that while with Denver, Shanahan was 5-3 against Belichick, including a divisional playoff win.
Patrick asked Shanahan directly if the Broncos ever employed a lip reader on their staff, "Back then everybody was trying to steal signals. I can tell you some of the best quarterbacks in the league they had different cue cards from the sideline depending on what defense or blitz trying to do everything that they could [to prepare the quarterback]."
So, everybody did it, I guess this is possible. Doesn't explain what happened at the end of the Shanahan Era in Denver, but it could help explain Brian Griese, Jake Plummer and Jay Cutler all making the Pro Bowl with Shanahan at the helm.
One thing that is certain, between interviews like this and the revelations of Mike Martz this week regarding spygate, these cheating allegations are nowhere near over. Especially when NBC announces during the broadcast that the Steelers coaches headsets are out and that they're broadcasting Patriots game radio.
Then head coach Mike Tomlin refused to address it beyond that it was reported and it's being handled.
Most of you are missing the larger point: Tomlin isn't alone. The rest of the NFL has had enough and is calling BS. This isn't the end of it
— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) September 11, 2015