boutons_
09-23-2006, 02:39 PM
September 24, 2006
For N.F.L., Crowd Noise Has Become a Headache
By JOHN BRANCH
At most big ballgames, noise is good, and more noise is better.
Skin-baring cheerleaders, cartoonish mascots and maniacal M.C.’s take turns trying to whip fans into a frenzy. Scoreboard messages tease the crowd with faux decibel meters and implore fans to “Raise the Roof!”
Because vocal cords are not enough, fans sometimes receive noisemakers like inflatable bat-shaped balloons at the gate. They can create a cacophony of thump-thump-thumps meant to lift the home squad’s spirits and deflate the visiting team. There can never be too much commotion.
Except in the N.F.L.
The league has long had an uneasy relationship with crowd noise, and may soon embark on its latest quest to overcome it — not by hushing fans, but by allowing visiting teams the benefit of a helmet-to-helmet wireless communication system.
The issue came to the forefront last week as the Giants (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/profootball/nationalfootballleague/newyorkgiants/index.html?inline=nyt-org) prepared for today’s game against the Seahawks (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/profootball/nationalfootballleague/seattleseahawks/index.html?inline=nyt-org) at Qwest Field, the notriously loud stadium in Seattle. When the teams played there last November, the Giants were called for 11 false-start penalties, the kind often caused by a failure to communicate. The Giants had 16 penalties over all, the highest number for the franchise since 1949, and lost in overtime, 24-21.
The former quarterback Ron Jaworski remembered a game at the Orange Bowl in Miami in 1981 that was so loud, he turned repeatedly to the referee for help.
“He finally said, ‘Run the play, Ron, or we’ll never get out of here,’ ” said Jaworski, who played 15 N.F.L. seasons, mostly with the Philadelphia Eagles (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/profootball/nationalfootballleague/philadelphiaeagles/index.html?inline=nyt-org).
The N.F.L. is not antinoise, exactly. It just does not appreciate certain types at certain times. The N.F.L. rule book even has a 900-word section devoted to crowd noise; too much, when the visiting offense is on the field, can draw a penalty for the home team. Teams also receive detailed, and restrictive, instructions from the league about ways to elicit reactions from their fans. Under the guidelines, some electronic messages — “Let’s go crazy” and “Pump it up” are among those listed — are not acceptable. Other chants (“De-fense!”) are appropriate, at certain times. Encouraging the wave is not — ever.
But N.F.L. fans cannot help themselves. So they keep cheering, often disrupting the communications and hard-thought intentions of the visiting offense and becoming, in effect, what Seattle fans and others call the 12th man. Once the opponents are rattled, the crowd cheers even louder.
Fans may think that is good. Other leagues may think it is super. The N.F.L. is not so sure.
With no reasonable way to curb enthusiasm without appearing stodgy, Roger Goodell, the new N.F.L. commissioner, is floating another idea: placing microphones in quarterbacks’ helmets and speakers in the helmets of other offensive players, so that play calls and snap counts can be heard despite the din. Quarterbacks now have earpieces that allow them to hear coaches, but the transmission is cut with 15 seconds left on the play clock.
Goodell said he believed that noise should lift a defense, not interrupt an offense. He said he did not want to hush the crowd, just limit its impact.
“That’s what our game is about: our athletes and coaches playing at the highest possible level and being able to execute their game plans,” Goodell said Sept. 6, during his first news conference after succeeding Paul Tagliabue (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/paul_tagliabue/index.html?inline=nyt-per).
“To some extent right now, I think we are hindering that a little bit, because they come into an opposing stadium and they are not able to put the full offense in, they are not able to run plays in, they are not able to change the plays at the line of scrimmage.”
Today at Qwest Field, where 70 percent of the 72,000 seats are covered by a roof, league officials will be looking, and listening, for violations of the noise rules. Some have voiced concerns that the Seahawks and other teams pipe in artificial sounds to bolster the well-timed cheers of fans, which Seattle Coach Mike Holmgren has denied.
A recent analysis by The New York Times showed that penalties, particularly noise-related penalties like offensive holding and false starts, have been on the rise in recent years. It found that more penalties, especially those for false starts, are called in domed stadiums, which tend to be louder.
Giants players say they can usually hear quarterback Eli Manning (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/eli_manning/index.html?inline=nyt-per) in the huddle during road games in noisy stadiums, though they sometimes resort to reading lips. As the noise invariably rises before the snap of an important play, center Shaun O’Hara can hear Manning’s cadence; the guards, to either side of O’Hara, often cannot.
The Giants use a silent count when Manning is in the shotgun formation, several steps behind the center. He signals to O’Hara that he is ready, usually with a raised leg, and the ball is snapped after a certain number of beats.
False-start penalties, particularly on the road, come when players try to anticipate the snap rather than see it.
For Manning, the biggest nuisance is struggling to shout instructions or bark warnings at the line of scrimmage. Changing a play is nearly impossible.
That is the type of situation that concerns Goodell. It is not, however, a new concern to the N.F.L. It adopted a noise penalty in 1989, allowing the referee, at the quarterback’s request, to warn the home team that the crowd is being disruptive. The referee, who stands behind the quarterback at the snap, can dock the home team a timeout, or even call a 5-yard penalty, if he decides that linemen cannot hear the snap count.
Mike Pereira, the N.F.L.’s vice president for officiating, has been in the league office for nine years. He said the rule had not been enforced in that time.
“Quite frankly, everybody is doing silent counts now,” Pereira said.
Quarterbacks said that turning to ask a referee for help would only incite the crowd to make more noise.
“Every game I’ve talked to the ref, and they say, ‘Hey, if you think it’s too loud, you can look back,’ ” Manning said. “ ‘Most of the time we’re going to tell you to snap the ball, though. But you can ask for it if you want.’ ”
Given all this, one might expect wireless communication to be a popular idea around the league. But that may not be so. Holmgren, whose team has reaped the benefits of noise, is understandably skeptical.
“We don’t want ‘Star Wars’ and electronics taking over the game,” he said during a midweek conference call in which the noise issue was raised.
“Every visiting team has to deal with that in one way or another, and I think most teams have done a nice job with silent counts and different things. Every week, there are 16 teams that have to deal with it. I would be against putting any sort of doodads in anybody’s helmets from now on.”
But several Giants, including Manning and some offensive linemen who struggled with the noise last year in Seattle, said they opposed the idea of adding the devices as well.
Guard David Diehl said: “That’s part of the battle of having home-field advantage, is having a loud crowd, doing those kinds of things so the other team is not able to hear the count, not be able to hear those things. I don’t think I’d be for it.”
Diehl was called for three false-start penalties last year in Seattle. He knows that the crowd today will be loud, hoping to disrupt the Giants’ best-laid plans.
For N.F.L., Crowd Noise Has Become a Headache
By JOHN BRANCH
At most big ballgames, noise is good, and more noise is better.
Skin-baring cheerleaders, cartoonish mascots and maniacal M.C.’s take turns trying to whip fans into a frenzy. Scoreboard messages tease the crowd with faux decibel meters and implore fans to “Raise the Roof!”
Because vocal cords are not enough, fans sometimes receive noisemakers like inflatable bat-shaped balloons at the gate. They can create a cacophony of thump-thump-thumps meant to lift the home squad’s spirits and deflate the visiting team. There can never be too much commotion.
Except in the N.F.L.
The league has long had an uneasy relationship with crowd noise, and may soon embark on its latest quest to overcome it — not by hushing fans, but by allowing visiting teams the benefit of a helmet-to-helmet wireless communication system.
The issue came to the forefront last week as the Giants (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/profootball/nationalfootballleague/newyorkgiants/index.html?inline=nyt-org) prepared for today’s game against the Seahawks (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/profootball/nationalfootballleague/seattleseahawks/index.html?inline=nyt-org) at Qwest Field, the notriously loud stadium in Seattle. When the teams played there last November, the Giants were called for 11 false-start penalties, the kind often caused by a failure to communicate. The Giants had 16 penalties over all, the highest number for the franchise since 1949, and lost in overtime, 24-21.
The former quarterback Ron Jaworski remembered a game at the Orange Bowl in Miami in 1981 that was so loud, he turned repeatedly to the referee for help.
“He finally said, ‘Run the play, Ron, or we’ll never get out of here,’ ” said Jaworski, who played 15 N.F.L. seasons, mostly with the Philadelphia Eagles (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/sports/profootball/nationalfootballleague/philadelphiaeagles/index.html?inline=nyt-org).
The N.F.L. is not antinoise, exactly. It just does not appreciate certain types at certain times. The N.F.L. rule book even has a 900-word section devoted to crowd noise; too much, when the visiting offense is on the field, can draw a penalty for the home team. Teams also receive detailed, and restrictive, instructions from the league about ways to elicit reactions from their fans. Under the guidelines, some electronic messages — “Let’s go crazy” and “Pump it up” are among those listed — are not acceptable. Other chants (“De-fense!”) are appropriate, at certain times. Encouraging the wave is not — ever.
But N.F.L. fans cannot help themselves. So they keep cheering, often disrupting the communications and hard-thought intentions of the visiting offense and becoming, in effect, what Seattle fans and others call the 12th man. Once the opponents are rattled, the crowd cheers even louder.
Fans may think that is good. Other leagues may think it is super. The N.F.L. is not so sure.
With no reasonable way to curb enthusiasm without appearing stodgy, Roger Goodell, the new N.F.L. commissioner, is floating another idea: placing microphones in quarterbacks’ helmets and speakers in the helmets of other offensive players, so that play calls and snap counts can be heard despite the din. Quarterbacks now have earpieces that allow them to hear coaches, but the transmission is cut with 15 seconds left on the play clock.
Goodell said he believed that noise should lift a defense, not interrupt an offense. He said he did not want to hush the crowd, just limit its impact.
“That’s what our game is about: our athletes and coaches playing at the highest possible level and being able to execute their game plans,” Goodell said Sept. 6, during his first news conference after succeeding Paul Tagliabue (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/paul_tagliabue/index.html?inline=nyt-per).
“To some extent right now, I think we are hindering that a little bit, because they come into an opposing stadium and they are not able to put the full offense in, they are not able to run plays in, they are not able to change the plays at the line of scrimmage.”
Today at Qwest Field, where 70 percent of the 72,000 seats are covered by a roof, league officials will be looking, and listening, for violations of the noise rules. Some have voiced concerns that the Seahawks and other teams pipe in artificial sounds to bolster the well-timed cheers of fans, which Seattle Coach Mike Holmgren has denied.
A recent analysis by The New York Times showed that penalties, particularly noise-related penalties like offensive holding and false starts, have been on the rise in recent years. It found that more penalties, especially those for false starts, are called in domed stadiums, which tend to be louder.
Giants players say they can usually hear quarterback Eli Manning (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/eli_manning/index.html?inline=nyt-per) in the huddle during road games in noisy stadiums, though they sometimes resort to reading lips. As the noise invariably rises before the snap of an important play, center Shaun O’Hara can hear Manning’s cadence; the guards, to either side of O’Hara, often cannot.
The Giants use a silent count when Manning is in the shotgun formation, several steps behind the center. He signals to O’Hara that he is ready, usually with a raised leg, and the ball is snapped after a certain number of beats.
False-start penalties, particularly on the road, come when players try to anticipate the snap rather than see it.
For Manning, the biggest nuisance is struggling to shout instructions or bark warnings at the line of scrimmage. Changing a play is nearly impossible.
That is the type of situation that concerns Goodell. It is not, however, a new concern to the N.F.L. It adopted a noise penalty in 1989, allowing the referee, at the quarterback’s request, to warn the home team that the crowd is being disruptive. The referee, who stands behind the quarterback at the snap, can dock the home team a timeout, or even call a 5-yard penalty, if he decides that linemen cannot hear the snap count.
Mike Pereira, the N.F.L.’s vice president for officiating, has been in the league office for nine years. He said the rule had not been enforced in that time.
“Quite frankly, everybody is doing silent counts now,” Pereira said.
Quarterbacks said that turning to ask a referee for help would only incite the crowd to make more noise.
“Every game I’ve talked to the ref, and they say, ‘Hey, if you think it’s too loud, you can look back,’ ” Manning said. “ ‘Most of the time we’re going to tell you to snap the ball, though. But you can ask for it if you want.’ ”
Given all this, one might expect wireless communication to be a popular idea around the league. But that may not be so. Holmgren, whose team has reaped the benefits of noise, is understandably skeptical.
“We don’t want ‘Star Wars’ and electronics taking over the game,” he said during a midweek conference call in which the noise issue was raised.
“Every visiting team has to deal with that in one way or another, and I think most teams have done a nice job with silent counts and different things. Every week, there are 16 teams that have to deal with it. I would be against putting any sort of doodads in anybody’s helmets from now on.”
But several Giants, including Manning and some offensive linemen who struggled with the noise last year in Seattle, said they opposed the idea of adding the devices as well.
Guard David Diehl said: “That’s part of the battle of having home-field advantage, is having a loud crowd, doing those kinds of things so the other team is not able to hear the count, not be able to hear those things. I don’t think I’d be for it.”
Diehl was called for three false-start penalties last year in Seattle. He knows that the crowd today will be loud, hoping to disrupt the Giants’ best-laid plans.