Once you hear the phrase “sign-stealing” in soccer, your thoughts seemingly instantly goes to Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan Wolverines and the way that program was hit with main penalties for its expansive operation led by the notorious Connor Stalions. However the fact is, sign-stealing will not be an unusual factor in sports activities. It is simply that the majority applications and franchises do not go to the lengths Stalions did to uncover the alerts of Michigan’s opponents.
San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh introduced up the topic throughout his media availability Thursday forward of Sunday’s recreation with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Saleh famous that Jacksonville has a “signal-stealing kind system” that’s frequent with guys from Sean McVay’s teaching tree — comparable to first-year Jaguars coach Liam Coen.
“Liam and his employees, couple guys coming from Minnesota, they have a — legally — a extremely superior signal-stealing kind system the place they all the time discover a technique to put themselves in an advantageous scenario,” Saleh mentioned. “They do an awesome job of it. They formation you to only attempt to discover any nugget they will. So we have got to be nice with our alerts and we have gotta be nice with our communication to fight a number of the tells that we’d give on the sector.”
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Saleh mentioned he is run into this with different McVay disciples, comparable to Kevin O’Connell with the Minnesota Vikings.
“They’re virtually elite in that regard. That entire whole tree from Sean [McVay] to Kevin O’Connell to all of these guys, all of them do it,” Saleh mentioned. “There’s challenges. They will catch us in some conditions the place they’ve the benefit and we have simply obtained to play sound, elementary soccer and do our greatest to out-execute them.”
Saleh emphasised that there’s nothing unlawful about this follow, and it isn’t an unusual factor. It simply occurs that this particular group of offensive minds is especially good at it.
Saleh mentioned the alerts could possibly be swiped from folks on the sideline or it might simply be a participant’s particular person hand alerts. No matter these groups are taking away, it is a system that will get them right into a “very advantageous place a number of instances in the course of the course of a recreation.”
“It is the final word trick,” Saleh mentioned.
Coen, who’s in his first 12 months as a head coach, has the Jaguars off to a 2-1 begin. He spent 4 years beneath McVay with the Los Angeles Rams, working with broad receivers, quarterbacks and served as offensive coordinator in 2022.
The 49ers, in the meantime, are off to a 3-0 begin and are 3.5-point house favorites for Sunday’s recreation at FanDuel Sportsbook.
