Falcons' video crew sees all

The behind-the-scenes video crew is the backbone of every NFL coaching staff. The Falcons have three full-time employees and one intern who do nothing but feed video histories of every game, opponent and even that afternoon's practice to satisfy the team's appetite for intelligence.

”Everything is digital now," Crews said. "All of our stuff ... our cases and amount of cases has come down dramatically over the years. We used to have to take a lot more equipment. But now that everything has become digital, we travel with five projectors, five laptops and three cameras. We are shooting directly to the laptop on Sundays."

From the end of the game on Sunday, they are digitally editing game film while preparing a week ahead for the next opponent.

"Sunday night, we'll come back here and get our game cut up," Crews said. "Offense, defense and kicks. Get it in the video-data system so when the coaches come in the first thing Monday morning, all of the video is cut up and ready to go."

The crew also attaches data to the film, which includes the play call and down and distance.

Things once were not so handy. Assistant head coach/secondary coach Emmitt Thomas,  whose playing career began in 1966 and NFL coaching career started in 1981, finds the changes mind-boggling.

"You had to cut the tape, splice it, tape it together, put it back on the reel, [then a] break in the middle of the meeting. You had to have a five- or 10-minute break," Thomas recalled of the old celluloid age. "Now you just hit a button."

On road games, coaches can even start grading film on the plane ride home.

"As soon as the games are over, we are getting the games cut up and ready," Crews said. "We'll start distributing the game on the plane to any coach who wants to start watching and grading their players right there on the plane."

The video crew serves many masters. While the football team is getting ready to play the New York Giants on Sunday, the video crew has already moved on to preparing for Tampa Bay the following Sunday.

"We are always working kind of a week ahead," Crews said.

But they are also there to fulfill the random individual request. A few weeks ago, tight end Tony Gonzalez wanted to look at a certain pass route that he ran last season for Kansas City.

"I said, ‘Hey, can you get me this?' " Gonzalez said. "They said, ‘Sure,' and had it right there literally in two minutes."

An original intent of Paul Brown's, when the Hall of Fame coach pioneered film use in football in the 1950s, was to identify opponents' tendencies, statistical data for how many times a team blitzes or what coverages an opponent likes to play in different down-and-distance situations. That remains a huge segment of Crews' responsibility.

"The following week, as soon as our game is over, that [opponent's] stuff is in the system so when the coaches are ready, that stuff for our next opponent is already there," Crews said.

Crews and his video assistants Phil Tiemann and Daniel Wayne work from 80 to 110 hours per week pulling together all of the video for the coaching staff. Bulky VCR tapes are a thing of the past. Most of the video is transferred via computer files and watched on laptops or on projectors.

"We give our players DVDs," Crews said. "Some of our players have their own laptops. We'll send them computer files."

Falcons linebacker Mike Peterson is one of Crews' most frequent customers. When previewing opponents, he starts by watching complete games and then goes back to look at different cut-ups, such as running plays, third-and-short situations, third-and-long, two-minute offense and trick plays.

The video crew loads it all on a flash drive to plug into his laptop, which he'll watch at home, on the team plane and at the hotel.

"The guys back here [in the video department], they're the best," Peterson said. "They give me all the film, everything I need."

Center Todd McClure is another steady client. He estimates he and the offensive linemen watch about six hours of video together, separate from team meetings. There's a Monday review of the previous day's game before tape sessions with coaches and linemen-only sessions Friday and Saturday, including one last look Saturday night at the team hotel.

With the help of Crews and his assistants, they investigate clues that can open the path to a win.

McClure remembers how film review once enabled the line to catch a defensive end who gave away a line stunt by going into a left-handed stance only when that stunt was called.

"We had a call the whole game, and we knew every time they were slanting," McClure said. "Little things like that could change the outcome of a game."