One of the coolest Detroit Lions moments ever goes all the way back to December of 1997 when the Lions were playing the New York Jets in a sold out Pontiac Silverdome.
There’s a big reason why the building was sold out that night. This was the night that Barry Sanders would go over 2,000 yards in a season and cap off an MVP winning year. The Lions also were trying to clinch a playoff spot with a win as well. So Lions fans were naturally pretty hype on this night. Maybe a little too hype.
If you’ve never seen this before, you might notice something weird about it. Wait, the Lions could get flagged if the crowd is too loud?
Yes, this was an actual rule the NFL introduced in 1989. It was a whole process and here’s how it worked:
- Crowd is given an initial warning and then players are asked to assist in quieting the crowd.
- A second warning that includes the official informing fans that if the noise level persists, the home team will be charged with a timeout
- If the noise does indeed persist, the timeout is then charged
- If it still persists after that, a delay of game penalty is called on the home team.
Things didn’t go too that far for the Lions on this night. You see at the end of the video that Lions players are trying to calm down the crowd after learning that they could lose a timeout.
Was this ever actually called on a team? Yes. According to Football Zebras, The 1989 Colts were penalized twice in a preseason game. Yes, you read that right. a pre-season game. You know, where the crowds are always packed and people are super excited to see their third string quarterback play. Honestly, I think I would penalize a crowd for being too loud during a preseason game too.
Ok, here’s what everyone wants to know. Is this still a thing? If Lions fans show out at Ford Field on Monday night and blow the roof off the place, can they get the Lions called for penalties?
No, not anymore. The NFL got rid of the rule in 2007 for multiple reasons. One of them being that it was dumb. That’s not an actual reason given, but it should be.
One reason why it’s gone, and you might have noticed this in the video, was that this rule is trigged by a complaint from the quarterback who can’t get things going becasue nobody can hear. There were examples of quarterbacks using this rule to try to move up the field. Like, quarterbacks were pretending they couldn’t hear even if it wasn’t that loud.
Lastly, technology makes the rule obsolete. Quarterbacks have radios in their helmets and coaches have a direct line to that radio. The other thing is teams do silent counts now.
So with all this said, feel free to go out there on Monday night and be as loud as you possibly can for your team. It’s time to break some voice boxes out there people. Get hyped!