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"Blue 44! Blue 42! Set! Set! Hike!" We all know communication is essential to any football play. This includes communication from the booth to the coach, from the coach to the quarterback, and from the quarterback to the rest of the team. As the quarterback shouts out a call, the defense adjusts their formation to what they think the play is going to be.

Sports are a contest of information gathering. The object is to make the other team think you going to carry out a completely different play from the one you are actually going to perform. In baseball, the unwritten language of signing has been a central factor of the game; it is no different in football.

If players are allowed to watch videos of plays after a game, they have just as much right to watch all of the signals that led up to that play. The signals are just as much a part of the play as the foot patterns used by the quarterback, and the setup of the offensive linemen.

Let's not kid ourselves, and say that some information is okay to be recorded, while other information can only be noted in notebooks, and shared after the game.

From baseball to basketball, numbers and words are constantly being shouted by players and coaches; those signals are changed game-by-game, so that they cannot be detected.

Why are football signals being afforded more artificial protection? Every aspect of the game should be available for recording, so that it can be used to garner information by the opposing teams.

Learn more about this author, Adam Goodkind.
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