Suspicious coaches hiding game plan secrets from spies
Is it time to start mass-producing Rider Spied buttons?
One has to wonder after listening to Calgary Stampeders head coach Dave Dickenson, who is barring fans from practices leading up to Saturday’s CFL game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
“I ain’t letting people in,” Dickenson told Jock Wilson of Calgary radio station News Talk 770. “They had way too much green on, so sorry, (Stampeders) fans. It’s going to be one of those weeks where we have to try to keep it tight because there are spies everywhere in this city.”
Global Regina’s Taylor Shire brought Dickenson’s comment to Chris Jones’ attention after the Riders’ open practice on Tuesday.
“That’s interesting you say that, because we’re doing the same thing,” said the Roughriders’ head coach/GM, whose team will close practice on Thursday.
“In Ottawa (last year), (Redblacks special teams co-ordinator) Bobby Dyce came up to one of our players after the game and knew some of the fakes that we had, so you know that information is coming from somewhere.
“This past game, when we played Hamilton, there were a couple of guys on Hamilton that used to be here. We had a particular block on and they identified it in two seconds. It’s almost impossible to identify it that quickly unless they’ve been working on it.
“So we’re going to close practice and, if we do have anything, we’ll work on it on the day that’s closed. That way, nobody gets the upper hand on us.”
In the NFL, this would never be an issue. Every practice is closed. The CFL, however, is a different story.
“This is a fan-based league,” said Jones, who plans to close one practice per week. “We’ve got to average 25,000 fans in order to break even. We’ve got to have fans. I think it’s important.
“You saw today. We had more fans in our stands today than Toronto has at their games sometimes, so it’s a deal where they love it here and for them not to be able to come out during the summertime, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”
In most cases, the openness of practice isn’t an issue.
“Most of the stuff that we run isn’t going to be a surprise to the opponent,” Jones said. “It’s when you run those special plays (for) that week, that we have to run them during the closed practice so that they’ll actually be a surprise.”
Matters of this nature were seldom, if ever, an issue when Roughriders quarterback Kevin Glenn broke into the CFL in 2001. Back then, people carried a primitive cellphone, if they owned a mobile device at all. Now, how many people who occupy the stands at Mosaic Stadium wouldn’t have something like an iPhone?
“That’s with everyday life,” said Glenn, a proponent of open practices who understands the realities that coaches face when dealing with social media, etc.
“Some people are maybe paranoid of somebody taking pictures of, or videotaping a certain lineup or a certain formation or play . ... Maybe they just need to open practice, and if they find somebody videotaping while practice is going on, you kick them out of practice.”