VIDEO: Did Saints steal Cowboys signals via Boise State film? 'That's click-bait,' laughs Kellen Moore
FRISCO - The New Orleans Saints won their Week 4 game over the Dallas Cowboys 12-10, and to the victors go the spoils, the bragging rights and the laughter. But Dallas coordinator Kellen Moore gets to laugh, too, at some Saints players' claims that New Orleans won because they'd ingeniously figured out that the Cowboys are using the exact same "hand signals'' that Boise State used in Moore's playing days there.
Yes, Moore informed the DFW media today here at The Star, he is aware of the Saints' bold claim that not only did they steal Dallas' signals in a way that helped them win ... they stole the signals because they recognized them from when they were used in Moore's late-2000's playing days at Boise State.
I'll let Kellen answer this his way, and they below, I'll invite you to read me handling it my way. First to Moore, who said he was amused by the claim because the Cowboys don’t do “a single thing the same way” that his old Boise State teams did them in regard to "hand signals.''
"We don't do a single thing the same way,'' Moore said. "That was a good one though. Good story. Click-bait, right? You guys know a little about that."
Moore is kidding. We all should be laughing. To wit ...
NFL Espionage: The incredible, unbelievable top-secret ways the Saints and Packers outsmarted Cowboys OC Kellen Moore
The Ukraine ain't got nothin' on the Saints and the Packers, who utilized the height of espionage - old Boise State game film from Kellen Moore's playing days - to learn all the secrets of the Dallas Cowboys playbook, resulting in back-to-back Cowboys losses.
"To hell with blocking and tackling,'' one New Orleans Saints source told CowboysSI.com following the 12-10 defeat of Dallas. "We looked at 2008 Boise State film of when Kellen started quarterbacking there. And we stole it all.
"We looked at the film and read his lips. Kellen has, shall we say, very expressive lips.''
A Packers source expressed to CowboysSI.com a similar sentiment following Sunday's 34-24 win at Dallas, saying that Green Bay's scouting department got bleary-eyed watching hot-seated Jason Garrett film of his Princeton playing days mining for similar informational gold.
"We got bleary-eyed, though,'' admits the Packers scout, "because of the grainy nature of the old film. And because of Jason's irrepressible red hair. It was really distracting.''
Saints players in particular are on the record with NFL Network to assert that old game tapes reveal hands signals used by Moore in college that they took at hints for what they might see against the Cowboys now that Moore is the coordinator here.
Meanwhile, the coaching staffs at the Giants, the Redskins and the Dolphins - three teams that were blown out by now-3-2 Dallas - are NFL laughingstocks due to their failure to recognize the value of studying game film of Dallas assistant coaches when they were college players. Following the firing of Redskins head coach Jay Gruden, we're told Washington staffers have for the future been instructed to study Razorbacks hand signals circa 1960 (when Jerry Jones was an Arkansas lineman) and 1988 when Stephen Jones was a linebacker/safety.)
Said one Redskins source: "I mean, it's Arkansas. How clever can it really be?''
Dallas plays at the New York Jets this week, and sources tell tell CowboysSI.com that Jets scouting are already perusing antiquated film to try to solve not only Dallas offense, but its defense as well.
"We really have no idea of how to find Marinelli film from his playing days in in 1970 at California Lutheran,'' the source said. "But he served in Vietnam before that. If there were any 'hand signals' or anything like that there, we're all over it.''
