Sir Psycho Sexy

League green lights return of video noise messages

Posted by Mike Florio on March 29, 2010 10:28 PM ET
Once upon a time, NFL home teams could actually be penalized if the noise in the stadium was so loud that it legitimately disrupted the visitors' offense. Though that stupid rule has long since been abandoned, the league has maintained for 21 years a ban on using video messages to encourage fans to get loud.

Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal reports that this rule was wiped off the books at last week's league meetings in Orlando. And so teams will now be permitted to display messages like "Noise" and "Raise the Roof" and "Pump It Up" (but hopefully not "Simultaneous Fart in 3 . . . 2 . . . and 1 . . . !").

The goal? To make the experience more enjoyable for fans who have increasingly improving home technology where they can watch multiple games with their friends (and kill any slow moments with a call for a simultaneous fart in 3 . . . 2 . . . and 1 . . . .) "We want to make it a fun place for the fans to be, and [Commissioner] Roger [Goodell] pushed for this, and we will see how it works," Cowboys COO Stephen Jones said.

The only catch is that the messages must end "15 seconds before the ball is snapped," which we assume actually means 15 seconds before the play clock expires, since there's no way to know when the ball will be snapped, and thus no way of counting 15 seconds back from an unknown point.

Kaplan points out that no vote of the owners was required for the measure because it does not alter the rules of the game.

That said, it definitely will impact the experience for the road teams, especially in venues with lids.


My thoughts: This year the noise in the Dome was talked about enough that when we won a SB, the owners decided they wanted to have that kind of HFA. But you can't be like the dome baby! And now think about the dome when fans see a video message saying scream!

"May God have mercy on those who doubted his Saints."

saintsfan1976

Bingo!!

poydras

What are they doing? Going through the entire Saints season trying to figure out how we could have won the Super Bowl? It's like they think that since we won, something must be wrong.

Sir Psycho Sexy

It's a copy cat league, so I understand...but you can't copy the dome. THIS IS NEW ORLEANS!!

ScottF

Yes- they are looking at two other rules:

1) If a team is down by 21 points in the first half on the road, the visiting team will be given an automatic loss.

2) No offensive player may make a defensive play (aka strip / fumble recovery) that results in a touchdown.

CantonLegend

lol you noticed that too

funny how the league doesnt make such drastic changes any other year.....then when the saints win there has to be a rule against everything we did

strato

We shook up the world!!!!!

Rugby Saint II

Oh yeah, that's it............shaken not stirred. lol

strato

Right out of their socks...he he

73Saint

Do they really think it's about a message board, or digital display? No way, it's about the fact that we as fans are as in tune with the game as anyone else's fans in this league...even more! I laugh at the idea of people actually getting loud b/c some stupid sign says to do so. Good grief.

No one will ever come close to creating the energy that we create in the dome because of a rule, or a sign asking for noise, LOL.