"We wanted an opportunity to be able to ID who the eligible players were," Harbaugh said. "Because what they were doing was they would announce the eligible player and then Tom would take them to the line right away and snap the ball before we had a chance to even figure out who was lined up where. And that was the deception part of it, it was clearly deceptions.
"The officials told me after that they would give us the opportunity to do that, which they probably should have done during that series but they didn't really understand what was happening . . . They said that was the right thing. They would give us a chance to ID the eligible receiver so we could actually get him covered. That's why guys were open, because we couldn't ID where the eligible receivers were at. So that's the nature of that particular thing they were doing, that's what made it so difficult."
Harbaugh explained that he believed the league would look at what the Patriots did and make changes to the rules. He insisted that the officials were as caught off guard as anyone else.
"Normally you get an opportunity to . . . they'll give you a chance to make the proper substitutions and things like that," Harbaugh said. "It's not something that anybody has ever done before, so the league will look at that type of thing and I'm sure that they'll make some adjustments and things like that."
