Pro Football Coaches Spending Hours Doubling as Film Critics

The world of a professional football coach is often no more than a single room, lit only by the flickering images created by a movie projector.

An NFL coach--and player--spends a hefty portion of his week watching game films of upcoming opponents, trying to track every tendency, every formation and variation of it the opposition employs.

League rules require that teams exchange films of at least their last three games, but if the teams agree, even more can be traded. And nowadays, with a satellite dish and a few video recorders, coaches can produce their own copy of nearly every game.

But, as Bengals coach Sam Wyche said, just how one uses game films can be tricky.

As an example, take Chicago’s 44-0 drubbing of Dallas last week. The Bengals play the Cowboys in two weeks. Will the Bengals ask for that film to see what Chicago used so effectively, or do the Bengals ignore that one because of the lopsided score?

“We’ll look at the film to see what they (the Bears) did, but there are certain parts of the game you disregard,” Wyche said. “They’re not playing the same strategy on either side when the game gets out of hand. But up until that point, everything that happens is important.”

Just how much film a team watches varies, Wyche said. It is just a matter of how much time can be squeezed in to do it.

“We try to get our hands on as many (films) as we can. Very rarely do we play a game that we haven’t looked at between five and eight games of the opponent,” Wyche said. “(We get) not just sideline film but end zone film and television tapes to find out everything we can.”

It is surprising to learn that NFL teams, which can be as secretive as the CIA, are willing to exchange extra game films. But the effect of such exchanges are negligible, Wyche said.

“(The teams that trade extra films are) really not helping each other do much except saying, ‘Here’s some more material to study, see what you can figure out about it,”’ Wyche said.

And it sends coaches to the dimly lit film room for several more hours.