Robert Saleh says the Jaguars have a ‘really advanced signal stealing type system’

San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh raised some eyebrows on Thursday when he was asked how he’d combat the challenge of preparing for the Jacksonville Jaguars without star edge rusher Nick Bosa. These were the first words to come out of Saleh’s mouth:

Jacksonville, this is a very young but talented group. Liam and his staff, a couple of guys coming from Minnesota, they’ve got legally, a really advanced signal stealing type system where they always find a way to put themselves in an advantageous situation. They do a great job with it. They formation you to just try to find any nugget they can. So, we’ve got to be great with our signals and we’ve got to be great with our communication to combat some of the tells that we might give on the field. They’re almost elite in that regard.

Saleh isn’t the type of coach to give his opponent bulletin board material. He’s candid, open, and brutally honest. He said what Liam Cohen and his staff are doing isn’t any different from the rest of that coaching tree, including Sean McVay and Kevin O’Connell.

A couple of questions later, Saleh was asked a follow-up: Who are the Jaguars stealing the signals from? Here’s his answer:

“That’s the ultimate trick, whether it’s people from the sideline or whether it’s our individual hand signals. Whatever nugget they can find, they catch it. They always happen to find themselves in good situations based on the coverage you show. There’s nothing illegal about it. I’m not suggesting that. It’s just, you can tell that they’ve got a can system that’s getting them into a very advantageous position. It gets them into a very advantageous position multiple times during the course of a game.”

OK. That’s a funny response. “I’m not saying they’re cheating, but they sure happen to move the ball when they know the answer,” Saleh, basically.

Here’s Saleh’s answer to the question of whether he’s ever caught somebody stealing his signals:

“No, were there findings, and I was like, ‘how’d they know to get to that play?’ Yeah. We dealt with it in Minnesota last year. They got us into a couple of situations. You can see it on tape when they’re studying. It’s like, ‘how’d they know to be in that call at that time?’ We’ve experienced it with the Rams a little bit. It’s not an uncommon thing. This group of people, they’re pretty good at it.”

That was the second mention of the same coaching tree. The 49ers play the Rams next Thursday.

Sign-stealing has been prevalent in college and the NFL for years. This isn’t anything new. If we stick to the coaching tree Saleh’s referring to, Liam Cohen brought over a pair of assistants from the Minnesota Vikings to the Jaguars last season — Grant Udinski and Shaun Sarrett. Udkinski, 29, is the current offensive coordinator in Jacksonville. He was Sam Darnold’s quarterback coach during their magical run in 2024. Sarrett is the offensive line coach.

Do we think the offensive line coach is stealing signs, or the 29-year-old who was a graduate assistant at Baylor in 2019, when he slept in his car in a Walmart parking lot before climbing the ranks and providing advanced scouting reports for the Vikings a few years later?

Over the course of a game, if you re-watch the broadcast/television copy, you can hear Fred Warner — or whichever player for the said team is making the checks — use verbiage and see the rest of the defense adjust accordingly.

During the game, someone in the coaching booth is looking down from the press box, trying to gather what signals are being sent. That coach will jot down the signal and write down how the defense aligns. These coaches have been calling the same defense for several years. When that’s the case, they get into a routine. And when you don’t change your signals over a 3-4 year span, you’re asking for your opponent to catch on.

Saleh didn’t mention this by accident. He’s letting Jacksonville know the 49ers know they’re watching. It might cause the ‘Jaguars’ coaching staff in charge of “spying” to second-guess what a specific signal means, or wonder if there are dummy calls being made.

Defensive coordinators do the same thing when it comes to analyzing the TV copy of how the quarterback communicates pre-snap. But let’s keep it to the 49ers defense. Here’s the first passing play from Week 3:

After the tight end motions from the bottom of the screen to the top, Ji’Ayor Brown and Dee Winters both raise their left arm and signal to the safeties behind them with a balled/open fist, likely indicating a coverage.

A split second later, Fred Warner puts the goggles on, probably suggesting one of the second-level defenders will “spy” Kyler Murray:

However, generally speaking, the defensive backs are the players who will inform you of the coverage. If we skip ahead to an obvious third down later in the quarter, we can see the 49ers’ safeties communicating pre-snap as the Cardinals motion:

Marques Sigle, 36, and the safety to the left side of the screen, has his hand in a circle over his right eye. Jason Pinnock, 25, and the safety to our right, looks like he’s holding up a five, or just all fingers up, on the Cardinals’ initial alignment.

These are what “advanced scouts” are combing over. They’ll watch the coverage rotations, potential blitzes, and anything else the defense does after they make or give a signal.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see if the Niners, who are already overly communicative pre-snap, have more dummy calls to throw off Jacksonville and Los Angeles next week. Saleh runs a complex defense in terms of blitz packages, but his coverages are relatively simple. That should make any signs the team already uses easy to change and throw off their opponent.