Steelers Notebook: Team gets ready to face the noise
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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</TD><TD>Peter Diana, Post-Gazette
Will Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers be able to deal with the crowd noise at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis Sunday?
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-->Legal or not, the din in the RCA Dome Sunday again will test a Steelers offense that came unglued Nov. 28 at Indianapolis.
Five false starts on offense that night became a symbol of the Steelers' inability to deal with the crowd noise that, combined with the Colts' defense, disrupted their offense in a 26-7 Colts victory.
Since then, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, a Steelers official and even Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio charged that Colts management artificially enhances the sound level by capturing the home crowd noise and piping it back through the public address system at the RCA Dome.
The following week, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue sent a memo to each team reminding them that artificially enhancing crowd noise violated league rules and that if caught, a team could be fined and lose draft choices. Practically, however, it is a violation difficult to prove.
Their experience Nov. 28 did prompt the Steelers to change the way they run their offense on the road.
"The main thing is, how can we handle the crowd noise?" Roethlisberger said. "The last time we played them we couldn't do it. I think we tried to use the count too much -- my count, my cadence. This time we're going to go in with the silent count; that will be to our advantage. Hopefully we'll be able to get off the ball a little bit better and slow down their pass rush." They used the silent snap count -- a predetermined physical indicator signals each player to count to himself -- three weeks later at the Metrodome in Minnesota. While they had better success on offense, they still were flagged for four false starts that day. Sunday, the Steelers had three false starts in the first quarter at Cincinnati.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
<!--BEGIN PHOTO--><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=240 align=right border=0>
<TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD>
Will Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers be able to deal with the crowd noise at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis Sunday?
Click photo for larger image.
<CENTER>
</CENTER></TD><TD>
</TR>
</TABLE><!--END PHOTO--><!-- Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
-->Legal or not, the din in the RCA Dome Sunday again will test a Steelers offense that came unglued Nov. 28 at Indianapolis.
Five false starts on offense that night became a symbol of the Steelers' inability to deal with the crowd noise that, combined with the Colts' defense, disrupted their offense in a 26-7 Colts victory.
Since then, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, a Steelers official and even Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio charged that Colts management artificially enhances the sound level by capturing the home crowd noise and piping it back through the public address system at the RCA Dome.
The following week, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue sent a memo to each team reminding them that artificially enhancing crowd noise violated league rules and that if caught, a team could be fined and lose draft choices. Practically, however, it is a violation difficult to prove.
Their experience Nov. 28 did prompt the Steelers to change the way they run their offense on the road.
"The main thing is, how can we handle the crowd noise?" Roethlisberger said. "The last time we played them we couldn't do it. I think we tried to use the count too much -- my count, my cadence. This time we're going to go in with the silent count; that will be to our advantage. Hopefully we'll be able to get off the ball a little bit better and slow down their pass rush." They used the silent snap count -- a predetermined physical indicator signals each player to count to himself -- three weeks later at the Metrodome in Minnesota. While they had better success on offense, they still were flagged for four false starts that day. Sunday, the Steelers had three false starts in the first quarter at Cincinnati.
