Mark Dominik says his job was to steal signals for Dungy with Bucs

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers Mark Dominik opened up about signal stealing during an appearance on ESPN Wednesday.

Dominik is an analyst for ESPN but previously worked for the Bucs from 1997-2013, first as a scout and then as GM. He said that his job as an advance scout was to steal signals for then Bucs head coach Tony Dungy and later Bucs head coach Jon Gruden. The story became pertinent because of Deion Sanders’ recent accusations of the Colts’ signal stealing under Dungy.

“It’s not a big deal,” Dominik said of sign stealing. “I was an advance scout for not only Tony Dungy but Jon Gruden. Did I look for signals on the defensive side? You bet I did. That was the whole point of being out there.”

Dominik then explained the big qualifier to what he was doing compared to say what the Patriots were caught doing in “Spygate.”

“But you couldn’t record it. You would go to the game and have a list and write down the signals. Then you could go back and watch the tape later on and then you start to put it all together,” said Dominik.

“In general, it’s not a big deal. I don’t know any club that didn’t do advance scouting. They still do. But that’s also why we have microphones to the middle linebacker off the sideline.”

So Dominik says stealing signs is not a big deal, but then he acknowledged the league made some changes because the sign stealing isn’t good for the game. Still, this all begs the question: does any of this really matter, or is it all just noise?