from ESPN.com
“We wanted an opportunity to be able to ID who the eligible players were,” Harbaugh said. “What [the Patriots] were doing was they announce the ineligible player and then Tom [Brady] would take them to the line right away and snap the ball before we had a chance to figure out who was lined up where. That was the deception part of it. It was clearly deception.
“So the officials told me after that they would give us the opportunity to do that, which they probably should’ve done during that series but they didn’t really understand what was happening. That’s why I had to take the penalty, to get their attention so they would understand what was going on because they didn’t understand what was going on. … That’s why guys were open, because we didn’t ID where the eligible receivers were at.”
Brady disagreed with Harbaugh’s description of it as an act of deception.
“I don’t know what’s deceiving about that,” he said.
When informed of Harbaugh’s objection, Brady fired back.
“Maybe those guys gotta study the rulebook and figure it out,” he said. “We obviously knew what we were doing and we made some pretty important plays. It was a real good weapon for us.”
Patriots coach Bill Belichick explained the strategy, which he utilized on three plays and featured four offensive linemen on the field and had either running back Shane Vereen or tight end Michael Hoomanawanui lined up as ineligible.
“It’s a play that we thought would work,” Belichick said. “We ran it three times, a couple different looks. We had six eligible receivers on the field, but only five were eligible. The one who was ineligible reported that he was ineligible. No different than on the punt team or a situation like that.”
Harbaugh said it was a tactic that “nobody has ever seen before.” When asked whether he thought it was cheap or dirty, he said he would not comment.
CC: See spygate
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