Yahoo – Patriots backup quarterback Brian Hoyer used one of the projects [Peyton] Manning is currently involved with to help him prepare his teammates on defense for the Super Bowl…He bounced around a bit, but got a chance to be a starter in 2013-14 with the Cleveland Browns. In Cleveland, Hoyer played under offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan — and a young coach named Sean McVay, who was then tight ends coach.

Via Albert Breer of The MMQB, Hoyer (who also played for Shanahan in San Francisco) believed he’d have institutional knowledge of the offense McVay now runs with the Rams because of his time in Shanahan’s system.

So in the days before the Super Bowl he watched Manning’s “Detail” on ESPN+, the episode centered around Rams quarterback Jared Goff, and quickly realized the offense is the same one he worked in.

Hoyer watched film of the Rams, saw an interview in which Goff and McVay discussed McVay being in Goff’s ear right up until the 15-second cutoff during games, and for good measure, he watched the Amazon series “All or Nothing” which focused primarily on the last days of Jeff Fisher’s tenure with the organization but included McVay’s first organized team activities from his first months with the Rams.

The language was the same.

Armed with all of that, Hoyer was able to do a great job impersonating Goff during practice, preparing his teammates for how to play Los Angeles’ young quarterback.

I mean this was bound to happen sooner or later was it not? You have one of the best, most analytical quarterbacks of all-time in Peyton Manning just breaking down game footage for anyone with $4.99 in their pocket to see. Surely someone was going to watch that and use it to their advantage. Especially the Patriots if their opponent in the Rams appeared on said show. Especially if those MORONS didn’t even bother to change anything in the last 5 fucking years.

The key excerpt is just that. Brian Hoyer, from his time playing under Kyle Shanahan, and a young Sean McVay, on two different teams knew the type of system they like to run on offense. Except it wasn’t just the system that was the same.

“The language was the same.”

How is that even possible? For a league that treats the smallest of details like Soviet Bloc state secrets this is laughable. Now a lot of coaches rehash the same ideologies and styles of play over the years (i.e. Andy Reid, Wade Phillips), but to just re-use the same system without even changing a word here or there? Come on Sean, you learn this in every 9th grade homeroom across America when you need to copy off of your buddy’s homework.

 This was why it took two full years for the “A Football Life” documentary on Bill Belichick to come out. Released in 2011, the doc featured behind the scenes footage of the 2009 Patriots season, the one made famous for Bill predicting how easily the Pats would be stopped in the playoffs:

and him commiserating with Tom Brady on the sidelines during a blowout to the Saints

That was legendary, behind the scenes, insightful footage that I never thought would see the light of day. But it literally took two years after the season ended to come out. When half the players featured were no longer even on the team.  Not a couple of weeks after a game in real time so anyone with an ESPN+ subscription can watch behind the scenes Rams footage to go along with Rams game tape as well as a Hall of Fame quarterback breaking it down so even idiots like me can follow along.

Well hats off to Brian Hoyer for doing his goddamn job.

Hoyer had done such a good job preparing his teammates that when the Patriots were practicing in Atlanta, he felt frustrated.

“They had everything covered,” Hoyer said. “I was like, ‘Either these guys know what all our plays are, or they’re gonna ball out in the game.’ You could see it. They were playing so fast, they were so on top of it. And you get to the game, and they go and have the best defensive performance I’ve ever witnessed.”

The rest, as they say, is history.