Lovie Spying On Players
August 24th, 2015
Be careful what you do at home with those Surface tablets the team gave you, Bucs players. You better be watching game film and not those Jenna Jameson flicks.
Why? Because Bucs coach Lovie Smith is watching!
You better make sure you are studying practice tape and not uploading photos to your Instagram account. Because the Bucs are monitoring your every keystroke.
Lovie let the cat out of the bag last week when he appeared on the SiriusXM NFL Radio “Training Camp Tour,” when co-hosts Booger McFarland and Zig Fracassi spent three hours breaking down the Bucs.
During Lovie’s visit, he spoke often of wanting players who are “football junkies.” Fracassi wasn’t totally sure what Lovie meant by that. When Lovie explained, he offered that he and the Bucs monitor every move players make while on the team-supplied Surface tablets.
Zig Fracassi: You have referenced a few times during the interview “football junkie.” For our listeners out there, what constitutes a football junkie?
Lovie Smith: I’m talking about a guy who is about football pretty much all day. It is one thing to be here [at One Buc Palace] when you have set times when you are supposed to do things. But on your off day, what are you doing? Are you into football then? When you leave here, are you studying at night?
We can tell, really, with modern technology, who studies when, when they leave going away from here, with the new Surfaces that we have. And that is what I am talking about. Always trying to acquire more information to make them a better football player. And we have quite a few of them around here.
At least Lovie is open about this. And let’s be honest, this likely was going on when Raheem Morris dished out iPads back in the day. Just like computers, tablets leave a trail of bread crumbs as to where and what players have surfed.
This is why Joe is still shocked that a control freak like former Bucs commander Greg Schiano initially did away with iPads for players. You would think if anyone, it would be Schiano who wanted surveillance and data on his players away from One Buc Palace.
Just for s(p)its and giggles, Joe would love to see the Internet history from Da’Quan Bowers’ Surface. Guessing there is are at least some guitar sites and Gospel music pages visited.
Could you imagine what Aqib Talib would have watched using a Surface? Just a wild hunch, but defense attorneys would be high on the list. Perhaps YouTube videos of “Cops” as well?
August 24th, 2015 at 6:52 am
First off. ITS A FOOTBALL MONDAY!!!!!!
2nd off, @Joe. The Ipad days with Rah/Dom they total know what the players were doing on those Ipads. They was even a report that on some more games were being played than watching tape and playbooks. And believe me when they would sync the Ipads, the data was transfered, and then the admin just selects the player from the data base, and It will print out a nice pie chart of everything that was opened on the ipad and how long it stay open.
They have software that can do this on windows as well, and some of them will even do a nice screen capture when programs and webpages are open. So when you fire an employee you can show them all the website they were on when they were supposed to be working!!!!
August 24th, 2015 at 7:22 am
Almost all software applications collect usage statistics. Date and time you logged in, how long you were active, when you logged out. Welcome to the modern world. If you have a device from your job, and there is software pertaining to your business, like the Bucs surface tablets would have, you bet they are collecting that type of data. Its used for a number of reasons, like determining what features are most popular, which features are not being used, and how many users. The Bucs software probably has training modules that log a date and time and maybe even a test score at the end of the module. There is a lot of data that would be collected to monitor effectiveness of the application as well as monitoring player participation/accomplishments in the training material.
It sounds so insidious to say “Lovie is spying” when in reality, that happens to all of us every day, more than we know. Also if your corporate device has internet access, like most of them will, the company would have legal responsibility to know how there their device was being used, so you can bet the sys admins are monitoring how those devices are being used, at least at some level.
August 24th, 2015 at 7:26 am
@dreambig
you are correct about having to inform the employee about the monitoring, ususally its buried in the old employee hand-book and when the IT guy hands you your device. But just google “employee monitoring software”
There are some software that the boss can pic a certain employee and watch the same desktop as the employee for hours!!!! like it is live video.
August 24th, 2015 at 9:19 am
This is messed up…can you imagine any company keeping tabs on their employees like this?
I can’t imagine this creates the type of environment that fosters the trust that is needed to win in the game of football
August 24th, 2015 at 9:20 am
Remember how Schiano was the one who treated the players like kids and Lovie was going to come in and finally treat the team like a group of men?
August 24th, 2015 at 9:29 am
This is common with employer-employee work computers. Nothing new here
August 24th, 2015 at 9:36 am
Creepy I think. What’s next? An implanted chip to moniter a player’s every thought and move, since we’re paying you, you know. Technology, one step forward in the hived mind, two steps backwards in personal freedom. Like the spying going on across America in personal communications is fairly all encompassing because one might be a bad guy and saying illegal things about the powers that be.
August 24th, 2015 at 9:51 am
you don’t want to be tracked, use your NFL paycheck on a tablet your team didn’t buy you. pretty simple. Jameis, when talking about his FSU days, indicated that his team was aware that he was leading the team in film study even during baseball season. It seems to be used as a tool for motivation\recognition in alot of locker rooms and is not something that is done in secret. Tracking time spent looking at film has been part of the deal ever since film was available to players outside the facility.
August 24th, 2015 at 10:06 am
This is commonplace in everything from cable TV installation to Wallstreet. Why this shocks anyone is beyond me.
August 24th, 2015 at 11:04 am
It is one thing for a company to monitor employees phone calls, emails and usage of computers that are issued by the company and intended for work purposes. It should be expected that the equipment provided by your employer is for work purposes only and would be monitored.
It is another thing altogether for black opp entities representing and funded by our govt to spy on and collect data of “private” phone calls, texts and emails from every single American citizen. This is done and justified in the name of “protecting us all from the ‘bad people'(codenamed terrorists) who want to hurt us. But who is protecting us from those who are collecting and storing the information?
These are PRIVATE calls and communications. Protected by our Constitution. Americans are being spied on illegally – and everyone knows it now – but most are unwilling to stand up and demand that this be stopped. We just allow it like we allow all the other ways that our constitutional rights have been curtailed and violated.
LEOs and Govt agencies need to Follow the Constitution and GET A WARRANT if they suspect a person or group of wrongdoing/illegal activities.
WAKE UP AMERICAN CITIZENS and stop being so passive about defending your Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms from ALL threats – foreign AND domestic.
“Those who would give up essential Liberties for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both”
Benjamin Franklin
August 24th, 2015 at 11:18 am
I hear Evans lets his daughter play on the tablet, Lovie thinks hes on it too much.
August 24th, 2015 at 11:18 am
The Buc Realist Says:
“There are some software that the boss can pic a certain employee and watch the same desktop as the employee for hours!!!! like it is live video.”
This is very true. I’ve already done it many times myself.
August 24th, 2015 at 11:41 am
Buc1987… that sounds like two or more watching the same porn as the original viewer, feeding a crowd.
August 24th, 2015 at 11:51 am
Jenna Jameson?
What is this? 2003?
August 24th, 2015 at 12:29 pm
lol, im sure their salaries are competent enough for them to have their own computers to do “other” things on. But tracking how much the tablet is used for homework/research/passion of the game….oh yeah, nice!
Now if they could just sneak a few to the cheerleaders….and maybe enable the cam when they dont know it….maybe Joe’s favorite, Rachel Watson? 😉
August 24th, 2015 at 2:43 pm
Buccfan37 Says:
August 24th, 2015 at 11:41 am
“Buc1987… that sounds like two or more watching the same porn as the original viewer, feeding a crowd.”
Yeah there’s a program called Team Viewer where you can access other people’s entire desktop from your own. It’s pretty neat when you first start using it.
August 24th, 2015 at 3:04 pm
This is messed up…can you imagine any company keeping tabs on their employees like this?
Actually creamsickle I cannot imagine any company not doing this! I used to run a dental office. We were always concerned about what our employees might be doing on the net. For different reasons of course. We did not want somebody surfing porn sites because of the “dark web”. Next thing you know some Russian dude has seized your server info and locked it up or something worse. Yeah there are firewalls and other protections but why even take the risk.
I sure hope the Buc player know what the acronym NSFW means! LOL
Pickgin….off on a tangent but I agree completely and understand your passion.
I once had a jerk computer nerd tell me I was responsible if somebody hacked my computer and it would be all my fault. If I didn’t protect my software properly I deserved to be hacked.
Great I said so if you forget to lock the door to you house that means you DESERVE to be robbed. Would you report that robbery to the police? You DESERVED IT.