When you hear the phrase “sign-stealing” in football, your mind likely immediately goes to Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan Wolverines and how that program was hit with major penalties for its expansive operation led by the infamous Connor Stalions. But the truth is, sign-stealing is not an uncommon thing in sports. It’s just that most programs and franchises don’t go to the lengths Stalions did to uncover the signals of Michigan’s opponents.
San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh brought up the subject during his media availability Thursday ahead of Sunday’s game with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Saleh noted that Jacksonville has a “signal-stealing type system” that is common with guys from Sean McVay’s coaching tree — such as first-year Jaguars coach Liam Coen.
“Liam and his staff, couple guys coming from Minnesota, they’ve got a — legally — a really advanced signal-stealing type system where they always find a way to put themselves in an advantageous situation,” Saleh said. “They do a great job of it. They formation you to just try to find any nugget they can. So we’ve got to be great with our signals and we’ve gotta be great with our communication to combat some of the tells that we might give on the field.”
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Saleh said he’s run into this with other McVay disciples, such as Kevin O’Connell with the Minnesota Vikings.
“They’re almost elite in that regard. That whole entire tree from Sean [McVay] to Kevin O’Connell to all of those guys, they all do it,” Saleh said. “There’s challenges. They’re going to catch us in some situations where they have the advantage and we’ve just got to play sound, fundamental football and do our best to out-execute them.”
Saleh emphasized that there is nothing illegal about this practice, and it’s not an uncommon thing. It just happens that this specific group of offensive minds is particularly good at it.
Saleh said the signals could be swiped from people on the sideline or it could just be a player’s individual hand signals. Whatever these teams are taking away, it’s a system that gets them into a “very advantageous position multiple times during the course of a game.”
“It’s the ultimate trick,” Saleh said.
Coen, who is in his first year as a head coach, has the Jaguars off to a 2-1 start. He spent four years under McVay with the Los Angeles Rams, working with wide receivers, quarterbacks and served as offensive coordinator in 2022.
The 49ers, meanwhile, are off to a 3-0 start and are 3.5-point home favorites for Sunday’s game at FanDuel Sportsbook.
