While not everyone thinks it is within the sporting bounds, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said Wednesday opponents have had plenty of time to adjust.
When asked about running an uptempo offense and using deception, McDaniels cut off a question to make a point.
“One thing about that that I’d like to clear up is we didn’t do any of those things [with ineligible receivers] without huddling,” McDaniels said, via Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com. “When we did those things the last couple of games, we huddled every time we did it with the ineligible player. We substituted, we huddled, we declared him ineligible, the official declared him ineligible, and then we lined up.”
The Ravens might not agree, after they got caught with their collective pants down in the divisional round.
But McDaniels insisted everything was within the rules.
“I think we’ve only done it five times all year; we’ve huddled every time,” he said. “We’ve reported every time ineligible and once we did that we broke the huddle, we lined up and we ran the play. We didn’t try to hurry. We didn’t try to do anything that was deceptive in that manner. I think it was unique for a few plays. We ran it a couple times last week against Indianapolis and got nothing out of it [incomplete pass and sack]. Everybody talks about those couple Baltimore plays, but Indianapolis defended it very well. It’s just something we tried the one week and it gave us a little spark.”
If nothing else, it has given the Seahawks one more thing to think about and prepare for, which might be as effective as any yards they gain on the plays.