Patriots getting busted for filming practices

The New England Patriots find themselves in the news for filming another team’s sidelines. Did they do anything wrong this time to the Cincinnati Bengals?

The New England Patriots have lost two games in a row may not be back in the AFC Championship for the first time in nearly a decade. New England is a good football team, but how sure are we that the Patriots are still a great one? And what’s up with the Patriots being in the news again about filming another team’s sidelines?

On this week’s episode of Stacking the Box, FanSided‘s Matt Verderame and Josh Hill, along with former NFL offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz, look at the situation regarding the video crew allegedly filming the Cincinnati Bengals’ sidelines ahead of their Week 15 game in the Queen City (5:45).

Neither Schwartz or Verderame are ready just yet to let the Patriots have it for getting caught filming another team’s sidelines. If you care to remember, this is eerily similar to what happened during SpyGate when the Patriots were caught filming the New York Jets’ defensive signals. Could they be up to it again?

Schwartz, who played in the NFL for eight years with five different franchises, doubts that the Patriots are trying to film the Bengals’ offensive or defensive signals. The reason for this is they’re communicated verbally between coaches and signal-callers with the hand covering the mouth of the initiator of the play call. Stealing signals is not as advantageous as it used to be in football.

That being said, Schwartz would say that if the Patriots are doing anything nefarious, it would be them trying to link up the sound of the coaches on the Bengals’ sidelines to see if there’s any indication of a play call or what’s coming next from the audio.

Verderame would say that if there was a member of the Patriots organization trying to steal signals from the press box, it would be laughable because those press boxes get so cramped. Overall, the guys want to see all the facts come out before they leap to the conclusion that the Patriots were up to something fishy by filming the Bengals ahead of their Week 15 game.

Here are a few other topics discussed on this week’s episode of Stacking the Box:

• FanSided 250, Verderame and Schwartz’s interests (0:40)
• Verderame, Schwartz break down bad TLC shows (5:01)
• Who are the real Super Bowl contenders? (52:20)
• What to watch for in Week 15 (54:14)

All this and more!

Subscribe to Stacking The Box and follow Geoff Schwartz, Matt Verderame and Josh Hill on Twitter.