On Monday night, Bill Belichick brought back an old accusation that the Colts played artificial crowd noise over the stadium speakers when the Patriots had the ball during a 2007 game between the teams. On Tuesday night, Colts owner Jim Irsay denied it.
It started when Belichick was talking to Peyton Manning on the Monday Night Football ManningCast. Manning asked Belichick about preparing his teams to play in the crowd noise at Arrowhead Stadium, and Belichick responded that Kansas City wasn’t as loud as Indianapolis because Indianapolis was cheating during their teams’ rivalry, when Belichick coached the Patriots and Manning quarterbacked the Colts.
“I’ll tell you, Peyton, the crowd noise there at Arrowhead wasn’t as bad as it was when you guys piped in music at the RCA Dome. And then when the music skipped — when the crowd noise skipped, that’s when we knew you were pumping it in,” Belichick said.
That led Irsay to go on social media and say nothing of the kind ever happened.
“Reminder...'piped-in crowd noise’ myth ---1000% fictional. And the ‘skip’ was TV broadcast. We get it, though…visiting teams couldn’t believe that 60,000 in an intimate domed stadium could make that much deafening noise! 👋🙂 A credit to Colts fans,” Irsay wrote.
After the 2007 Patriots-Colts game, when many TV viewers heard what they thought was evidence that the Colts were using artificial crowd noise that glitched during the game, CBS told the NFL that the issue was only on their broadcast and could not be heard in the stadium.
“CBS has informed the NFL that the unusual audio moment that fans might have heard during the Patriots-Colts telecast was the result of tape feedback in the CBS production truck and was isolated to the CBS broadcast,” the NFL said in a statement at the time. “The network and the league insisted that it was in no way related to any sound within the stadium and could not be heard in the stadium.”
The Colts added at the time, “We trust this will put an end to the ridiculous and unfounded accusations that the Colts artificially enhanced crowd noise at the RCA Dome in any way.”
But 17 years later, it still hasn’t been put to an end. Neither Belichick or Irsay is done talking about it.