New England Patriots fans are going to have a field day with this.
The team that sparked the DeflateGate saga, the Indianapolis Colts, also happened to have been engaging in a little rule-bending of their own according to former Colts OT Tarik Glenn.
Peyton Manning’s former left tackle told the Indy Star that during Manning’s rookie season in 1998, offensive line coach Howard Mudd had the line wearing hearing aids to help eliminate crowd noise during road games:
Via the Indy Star:
“We were playing on the road, it might have been Peyton’s rookie year, and it was really loud,” Glenn said. “Peyton hadn’t mastered the silent count, so (former offensive line coach) Howard Mudd had us wearing these hearing aids that were supposed to muffle the crowd while projecting the quarterback’s voice.
“Peyton said, ‘Hike,’ and I didn’t hear him. Everybody moved and I was still on the line of scrimmage. My man ran right by me. I turned around and yelled to Peyton, ‘Watch out!’. He didn’t hear me and he got sacked. When I got back to the huddle, I told him I had yelled. He said, ‘You couldn’t hear me, so what makes you think I could hear you?’ I thought that was pretty funny. Peyton didn’t think it was that funny at the time, but we laugh about it today.”
Using an unauthorized communication device of any kind is obviously illegal, and you have to wonder if the hearing aids were used beyond just Manning’s rookie season.
What ended up being a funny story telling by Glenn could end up being a full-blown investigation. The NFL, who has been known to do everything it can to try to keep integrity of the game intact (even though it really doesn’t) might very well look deep into these revelations.
At the very least, hearing aids might have given the Colts a bigger advantage than deflated footballs that allegedly gave Brady an advantage especially since Manning’s brilliance at being able to disguise things at the line of scrimmage.
Here’s some footage of Manning’s brilliance at the line of scrimmage:
