With every detail of every play recorded and quickly cataloged, video directors make film study a snap for players and coaches.
By JOANNE KORTH
Published October 1, 2003
[Times photo: Toni L. Sandys]
Bucs assistant video director Pat Brazil watches one computer screen while tape of a morning practice plays on another.
[Times photo: Toni L. Sandys]
In preparation for Monday night's game against Indianapolis, film boxes already are labeled for specific plays.
TAMPA - The room at One Buc Place is small and windowless.
The walls are hidden by narrow shelves holding rows and rows of videotapes. Editing machines with illuminated buttons, monitors, keyboards and VCRs stacked six-deep cover the tables. Behind the tables, the floor is obscured by a tangle of black wires.
It is best not to touch anything.
One day last week, Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin leaned into the doorway to make a request. Like bartenders in the movie Cocktail, Dave Levy and Pat Brazil sprung into action. But these high-tech mixologists do not make drinks.
They make tapes.
Lots and lots of tapes.
Film study has become an integral part of the NFL. Coaches and players spend hours each day reviewing their performances and breaking down opponents. That makes Levy and Brazil, the Bucs' video gurus, vital members of the team.
They keep the tapes rolling.
"Players are a lot more into film study than when we started doing this," said Brazil, 33, who joined Levy's staff 13 years ago. "They used to just watch in meetings. Now, guys are here every night all year round and they take tapes home. And it definitely translates to the field."
The Bucs go through about 200 tapes a week, each containing up to 30 minutes of footage. From training camp through playoffs, that is about 5,000 tapes a season.
"We get here at 8 o'clock in the morning and we only practice from 1 to 3 in the afternoon," cornerback Ronde Barber said. "Those other four or five hours we're watching film or breaking something down. If you've never been in a locker room you don't understand how much film we do watch. It's part of what we do."
Every game and practice session - every step, block, throw, kick, zig and zag - is captured on film from two bird's-eye views: sideline and end zone. The tapes then are intercut so each play can be seen from both angles. When Kiffin was a young coach with an affinity for studying film, making such a tape was an all-night project.
"In those days, it was on reels with an old movie projector," said Kiffin, who began coaching in 1966. "To make a tape you'd take scissors and cut it and Scotch tape strips of film all over the walls. It would take hours to put a tape together. Now, everything is digital and on computers. I have a computer on my desk and I can make a tape myself. I can put together 10 plays in two minutes. No scissors, no tape."
The key to the process is a computer program called Pinnacle that has turned film study into a science. Introduced nine years ago, Pinnacle stores images digitally. Accessing plays is easier than ever, much the same way DVDs eliminate rewinding and fast-forwarding. It also allows teams to be specific in their study sessions.
This week, the Bucs are preparing to play the Colts on Monday Night Football. A copy of Indianapolis' Sunday night victory against the Saints arrived at One Buc Place at 12:30 p.m. on Monday. Assistant coach Jeremy Bates locked himself in a room with the tape and a computer, logging into the program the details of every play. Like scenes in a movie, each play is numbered.
Set up like a spreadsheet, Pinnacle has categories for play number, quarter, down, distance, field position, hash, personnel group, strength, tight end, backs, formation, variations in the formation, motion, play type, screen, gadget, carrier, receiver, jersey number, run, pass, gain, blitz, result, penalty - no detail is overlooked. With the click of a button, the program will instantly group plays with like elements.
All Levy and Brazil have to do is load a tape into a recorder and press a button. These tapes are called cut ups.
"The way they can break things down now is phenomenal," veteran safety John Lynch said. "You can do so much now that sometimes you have to be careful. You start watching all these cut ups and you lose the flow of the game. I always watch my game tapes first so you can understand things and then I go to the cut ups."
Barber can request third-down plays. Kiffin can ask for all the running plays to the weak side. Defensive backs coach Mike Tomlin can ask for all the three-receiver sets. Gruden can ask for ... well, Gruden doesn't have to ask.
"Jon gets everything," said Levy, 36, in his 16th season as Bucs video director. "And he likes to save stuff. We have three years of NFL games and three years of college games on shelves in the scouting department and in boxes."
Every week, the Bucs receive copies of every NFL game. Though only those of future opponents are broken down in detail, every game is logged into the computer. When the Bucs reached the playoffs last season, Levy and Brazil made tapes of every potential opponent. The program holds 250 hours of footage.
"Anybody can watch anything," Levy said.
And not just game film.
During practice, Brazil and assistant Matt Mills stand atop 40-foot escalating platforms to shoot footage. Practices are divided into segments and at the end of each period Brazil and Mills unload cameras, wrap tapes in towels and place them in yellow mesh bags.
The bags are dropped over the edge of the platforms to runners waiting below who rush the tapes to Levy in the video room. Each day's practice is fully edited and intercut, waiting on Gruden's desk by the time he arrives.
"Now, with the digital editing machines, they might tell you how overworked and underpaid and underappreciated they are, but they're not," said Gruden, smiling. "These are very skilled professional people who do a great amount of work for us and give us a chance to study tape the right way and save time."
Not that Gruden takes full advantage of the technology. As a graduate assistant at the University of Tennessee in the late 1980s, Gruden used to splice tapes by hand. Though he now has a computer on his desk that allows him to v-mail plays to other members of the staff, he prefers a remote control to a mouse.
He likes tapes.
"I'm kind of old school, the guy who irritates them a little bit," Gruden said. "I like to work with the old-fashioned recorder and a remote. That's kind of a tradition."
