Though this subject has already been discussed to death the past few days on Dan Patrick’s ESPN show, the following item from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ed Bouchette is the first I’ve seen of the Steelers chiming in on the matter.
The noise inside the RCA Dome Monday night at Indianapolis was so loud it was unnatural, and that’s precisely what quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and one Steelers official claim it was.
Roethlisberger yesterday charged that the noise was artificially “pumped up” so the Steelers would have trouble at the line of scrimmage on offense.
Before the game, a Steelers official, who asked not to be identified, pointed out many microphones attached atop poles and stationed around the lower perimeter of the stadium. He said he believed they were used to capture the crowd noise and then filter it through the public address system to blast it louder when the Steelers were at the line of scrimmage on offense.
After the Steelers’ 26-7 loss to the Colts, coach Bill Cowher and many of his players cited the din inside the dome as a disruption to their offense and a possible cause for the five false start penalties against their offensive line.
“It was louder than any rock concert I’ve ever been to,” Roethlisberger said yesterday.
(Big Ben faves Fushitsusha, above, no match for Colts fans and overdubbed accompaniment)
I think Tom Coughlin should blame last week’s 11 false starts by the Giants on the crowd noise….that he anticipating coming from Indy the following evening.