What is quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s tell?, with Jon Hoefling

In this episode, I interview Jon Michael Hoefling, a sports analyst and broadcaster, about a recent story that was making the rounds: a young man named Theo Ash, who has a popular TikTok where he analyzes football, had found a physical tell that Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had: how Roethlisberger positioned his foot before a play indicated with almost near certainty whether he would run or pass. Jon Hoefling had written a piece for Deadspin about this, and I invited him on to talk about this tell – about why it showed up, about how likely it was that other teams had noticed it, about what the practical way to take advantage of it would be – and about some other football and sports tells. I may also have on Theo Ash in another episode, as I’m curious to know how he noticed this and what other things he’s noticed.

See the bottom of this post for other topics and resources. Podcast links:

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• Spotify
• Google Play
• Buzzsprout

Other topics discussed include:

• The role that analyzing video plays in football and how they may not be focusing that much on individuals
• Some other football tells
• The football tell in the movie Invincible
• Some baseball tells
• Andre Agassi’s claim that he had a super reliable read on Boris Becker
• Cheating scandals in baseball, including sign stealing and pitchers using “sticky stuff”

Related resources:

• A different take on Roethlisberger’s tell, where they say they think other teams may have noticed it