Houston Texans defensive end Antonio Smith said after Sunday’s 34-31 home loss to the New England Patriots that his opponents seem to know all the Texans’ defensive plays, and he found that suspicious. Smith even went so far as to suggest the Patriots may have been spying on them.
Smith says the Texans introduced new elements to their defense this week that they had never previously shown in games, therefore he believes no team would have been prepared for the new plays. But the Patriots were.
“I’m very suspicious,” Smith said via ESPN’s Tania Ganguli. “I just think it will be a big coincidence if that just happened by chance. I don’t know for sure, but I just know it was something that we practiced this week.”
The Pats scored 27 second half points against the Texans.
“I can’t tell you an example because it’s G15 classified,” Smith said. “It’s a defensive thing that we might continue to use. … The way, I’m trying to say it without giving it away. When you watch film of the team do something a certain way all the time no matter what team they play — it’s been 12 games played and they always did it — and then all of a sudden it’s changed? It was pretty clever and pretty suspicious.”
Smith went on to say that you can never be sure about cheating or spying accusations, but “it seemed like” the Pats knew what the Texans were going to be doing.
Two weeks ago Robert Griffin III said the Philadelphia Eagles defense knew exactly what the Redskins were doing on offense, but that seemed like a matter of the offense being predictable. The implication from Smith here is that the Patriots were possibly cheating to gain an edge, which would not be new for Bill Belichick. But it really could just be that the Texans have a predictable defense — even with their changes — which might be part of why they’re 2-10.
