Dan Reeves says NFL can't stand for cheats

Former Giants coach is from the old school, so he's no fan of innocuous injury reports

Jim Baumbach

11:27 AM EDT, September 12, 2007

In Dan Reeves' 40-plus years in the NFL, he has seen, heard and witnessed countless stories of players peering in at defensive coaches as they gave their players signals.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Reeves said from his Atlanta home last night. To football lifers, that's as much a part of the game as fake punt calls and halfback passes.

But to have one of your assistants filming the opponent's defensive signs from their sideline, like Bill Belichick's Patriots have been accused of doing to the Jets?

Now that's something Reeves has never heard of before, and the passion and fury in his voice as he talked about the incident emphasized his point that the NFL must act now.

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"The filming, that's cheating. It's wrong. If it's done, it's wrong, and you should be penalized," Reeves said. "The league can't allow those things to happen. There's no place in football for that. Tom Brady doesn't need to know what their signals are. Give me a break!"

Then Reeves laughed, took a second and calmed down. He's from the old school of football coaches, the types that believe the game is only on the field. Nowadays, it seems more coaches are in the mold of Belichick, who acts as if everything he does, says and touches is part of the strategy.

That's why we are subjected to meaningless injury updates, such as Eric Mangini's news conference on Monday. As is Mangini's style, which he learned as an assistant under Belichick, all Mangini basically said was that Chad Pennington will play when he's ready to play.

"There's no questions there are coaches that come from different schools, and I guess they think saying that gives them an advantage, I guess," Reeves said. "But I never looked at it that way. I didn't want to have a guy listed as doubtful and then all of a sudden on Sunday he's playing."

No team in any sport releases the full details of injuries, nor should they be expected to. But the fans deserve more than "he'll play when he's ready to play." That type of statement is obviously meant to hide the truth, thus creating rumors that could throw off the opponent.

But is it worth it?

"When you played someone that you knew was vague, you looked at it and took it with a grain of salt. It really didn't make too much difference in terms of your preparation, anyway," Reeves said. "I think there's a lot more read into that than what there really is. If you start to pay so much attention to that type of stuff, you lose focus of the game. There are a lot of things that are more important than that."

Reeves, 63, is now broadcasting games and doing a mid-week radio show for Westwood One. He refuses to rule out another stint as a coach. "I don't think the door ever closes. Joe Gibbs proved that," he said. But if he does come back, we're betting it won't be as a Belichick-Mangini clone.