If you believe the words of both Dan Campbell and Matt LaFleur, Jahmyr Gibbs accidentally leaking the Detroit Lions' protection calls ahead of Thursday night's showdown is much ado about nothing.
Gibbs accidentally posted the code words to a host of Lions' dropback protections on social media last week. Campbell said in a radio interview this week that he "doesn't really give a crap," noting that if that's why Detroit loses, they're not a very good football team.
Asked on Tuesday about using those codes, LaFleur likewise dismissed the importance.
"I'm sure our guys aren't going to sit there and study every code word they have in their offense," he said. "I mean, you can get this stuff from the TV copies. I mean, there are certain things you can pick up off the TV copies. That's why most teams, I would say probably every team in the league, listen to what they're putting out there as well as what the opponent is putting out there and you try to piece it together. Personally, I think it's probably a little bit overrated."
LaFleur noted that, particularly with division rivals, many of those tendencies are already known through scouting and experience.
"I mean, ultimately, you still got to stop whatever it is they're doing and they're a good football team," he said. "Just like most good football teams are going to have tendencies -- I'm sure we have a lot of tendencies too. But you got to stop it -- and vice versa. When you get tendencies, usually it's because you're doing something pretty well, and so you're going to keep on doing that probably. But I think all that stuff is pretty overrated. Ultimately, it comes down to the ability to go out there, get 11 men on the same page and go execute."
The Gibbs flub was more of a sideshow than an advantage for Green Bay this week. Teams routinely change up their calls to avoid rivals picking them up through TV copies. If obtaining those were a game-breaker, then signing released players from the opponents you're about to face would be much more prevalent and sought-after. Do things like that happen? Sure, but we're not talking about codes to the nuclear football here.
"It's not something that we, I would say, over-talk," LaFleur said when asked if they tell players to be conscious of whether they leak information. "I think the guys understand that nobody wants their information out there for the whole world to see. So, we try to keep everything in-house here. But I don't think it's like the end of the world, either. I don't think you gain a real competitive advantage off of that, personally."
