Tape measures - Mark Fields studies video tapes of practice sessions - Brief Article

Most nights when Saints outside linebacker Mark Fields gets home from work, he pops a tape in the VCR.

But hold the popcorn. Fields won't be seeing the latest special-effects-filled action flick. It won't be a Disney film for Fields to watch with his sons, Mark II and Tyus, either. And it won't be a romantic comedy for Fields and his wife, Angela, to enjoy.

Instead, Fields probably will watch an edited version of his day at work in Metairie, La., the home base and practice facility of the Saints.

A member of a defense that has been rated at or near the top of the NFL all season, Fields often brings his work home in the form of video from that day's practice session.

On another night, he will tune in for an hour of an opponent's running plays to prepare himself for a game. Or perhaps Fields will fall asleep reviewing a collection of plays that shows an opponent's goal-line offense.

"I watch about an hour a night. I try not to go over that," Fields says. "It helps tremendously (with play recognition). If I see a back a little deeper than normal or in an unusual formation, you recognize it."

The tape he watches on any given night is one of more than 100 produced each week by Joe Malota, the Saints' video director.

Malota, who has been with the team for four years, has chronicled on videotape pretty much everything that has happened at practices and in games during that period.

Inside the Saints' base of operations, Malota is usually found hunkered down with thousands of dollars of electronic equipment inside an editing room, where he has little time for conversation. No time to talk, he insists; got to splice together a two-minute tape on kickoffs--on-sides, squibs, deep kicks.

As is the custom for NFL teams, the Saints record all their practices on videotape. While Malota is inside editing, T.D. Cox often gets the precarious assignment of recording every drill outside on the team's practice field.

Perched on a platform that is suspended by a yellow crane high above the shrubs and fences that surround the practice area, Cox and his video camera on a tripod are the first things in sight to visitors approaching the facility.

Cox, a football operations assistant, explains the daily process. After each drill, he drops a tape off the platform with a pulley system. The tape is taken by another member of the football operations staff into the editing room, where Malota waits to do his thing. The film is edited and copies are made. When the coaches and players walk off the practice field, the tapes are ready for viewing.

Not only do the Saints review their own work, but their opponents am thoroughly dissected--and cut up. In football operations video jargon, "cut up" refers to editing game video into groups of similar situations and common plays. For example, the tape Fields sits down to watch could have 20 running plays out of the I-formation. Then it could show another 20 running plays out of a split-back set

The tape can be edited and broken down even further. It can be sorted into third-and-1 plays. Or third-and-long plays. Or fake-field-goal-attempts in-the-third-quarter-on-natural-grass-with-the-temperature-above-78-degrees plays.

OK that may be exaggerating a little, but the Saints do have a video collection to match your local Blockbuster franchise. In a room down the hall from the editing room, the Saints' video library is lined with tapes of every NFL game from the past three seasons, and even more shelves am stocked with video from college football games.

In another room downstairs, the team stores video and film from games dating to 1989.

Then there am the tapes Malota and his crew make for the Saints' coaching staff. Coach Jim Haslett and four scouts get every practice drill on tape. The offensive and defensive coordinators get tapes of all the drills involving their personnel. Tapes also are made for the special teams coach, line coaches and specific position coaches.

And more tapes and more tapes. Tapes that are watched, rewound and watched again. Tapes that hold the key to either stopping an opponent's swing pass or the blocking scheme for freeing a kick returner.

And, of course, the tape Fields will watch at home before he goes to bed.

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