When the Pittsburgh Steelers played at Indianapolis on a Monday night in late November, they went into the game without a silent count and were flagged for five false starts. They were beaten 26-7 and laid much of the blame on their failure to prepare for the deafening crowd noise.
Last Sunday, they were back in the RCA Dome for a divisional playoff game against the heavily favored Colts and not once were they whistled for a false start. The Colts, however, were flagged nine times, including a false start caused by their own crowd that nullified a second-quarter touchdown.
Pittsburgh knew what to expect, won 21-18 and will meet the Broncos in the AFC championship game at a stadium that finally found its lungs last weekend – the now noisy Invesco Field at Mile High. So loud was the crowd for Denver’s divisional playoff game against New England last week that not only were the Patriots penalized three times for false starts, but quarterback Tom Brady twice threw balls into the dirt on quick outs to receivers who hadn’t heard his audible.
“You know, I think for the first time it was as loud or maybe even louder than the old Mile High,” said Dick Bucelloni, a South Stands season-ticket holder since 1963 and a former president of the Broncos Quarterback Club. “I saw a report on one of the television stations that it got to over 100 decibels. You could tell it definitely had an impact on the game. Brady had a hard time changing plays at the line of scrimmage. They did a lot with hand signals and things, but they still had three or four false starts and a couple of times you could tell his receivers had run the wrong patterns.”
Crowd noise probably is the biggest factor to favor the home team in the NFL.
“No question about it,” Broncos defensive tackle Gerard Warren said. “It’s a tremendous, tremendous, tremendous advantage to the home team because not only does the quarterback have a hard time making his check, the offensive linemen can’t communicate with each other. You know, like, ‘I’m coming down on a combo block, you seal this guy.’ And sometimes, it even throws off the quarterback’s cadence a little bit.
“It’ll be a huge factor (today),” Warren said. “I’m looking for the crowd to come out and really help us out this week. They gave us a great advantage last week against New England, but I think they’re going to be even louder for the Steelers.”
False starts are the most common calamity caused by crowd noise, noted Broncos running back Mike Anderson. “But they’re not really a big deal until you start getting a bunch of them, and that’s how the crowd plays into it. You get two or three in a series and that’s really frustrating.”
The Steelers will do their best to prepare.
“We’re going to have to deal with crowd noise, there’s no question about that,” Steelers coach Bill Cowher said. “That’s something that we dealt with last week, too, so it’s going to be no different.”
If the Steelers follow the blueprint they used at Indianapolis, the idea will be to jump out to a commanding lead to keep the crowd quiet, taking the “12th man” out of the game.
“That’s what you always want to do when you’re the visiting team,” Broncos strong safety Nick Ferguson said. “It’s our job not to let that happen. We need our fans to keep helping us.”
The Broncos have not lost at home this season, carrying a 9-0 record, including a playoff victory, into today.
“I’ll tell you what, all our home games that we won this year, they were all because of our fans,” Ferguson said. “I’m telling you, it was all because of our fans, because if they don’t come out and cheer and yell and support the team, it’s like a very dismal time out there. You feel like you don’t have anything to play for because, hey, no one’s rooting for you. We’ve got a lot to play for Sunday.”
