Cameras capture officials patting down Baltimore Ravens before game

There are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes of an NFL game that we never get to see. On Thursday night before the NFL season opener between the Baltimore Ravens and Denver Broncos, we saw an interesting example of that when cameras captured the referees patting down Ravens players.

In a video that can be seen over at Deadspin, an official is shown counting the players who walk by and checking every X player. While this seemed bizarre to us because it is a moment that is rarely — if ever — captured on camera, it is apparently common practice.

“Officials are checking random uniforms for any illegal substances,” FOX Sports rule analyst Mike Pereira wrote on Twitter. “They check random players on both teams before the game and at halftime. Foreign substances can be grease or silicone. Players used to do it to make themselves harder to grab and/or make it easier to catch the football with stickem. This has been standard practice for years in the NFL.”

Pereira added that punishment would include confiscation of the uniform by NFL security and discipline from the league if a player was found to have an illegal substance on his body.

Who knew? Again, this is something the players are used to and has been going on for a while. But it was still interesting to see that they’re subject to the same type of pat downs before taking the field that we’re subject to before entering the stadium. God bless technology for sharing this useless piece of information with us.