JUST IN: Indianapolis Colts Jim Irsay sends heartfelt message to Bill Belichick’s remarkable claim

The RCA Dome, which housed the Indianapolis Colts from 1984 to 2007, has resurfaced in the news following claims by Bill Belichick.

During a recent appearance on ESPN’s Monday Night ‘ManningCast,’ the former New England Patriots coach accused the Colts of amplifying crowd noise through the stadium’s PA system.

While commenting on the noise levels at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium during the Chiefs-Saints game, Belichick mentioned to Peyton Manning, a former Colts quarterback, that the noise at Arrowhead wasn’t as bad as when the Colts allegedly piped in crowd noise at the RCA Dome. He pointed out that the Patriots noticed the crowd noise skipping, which led them to believe it was artificial.

 

 

Colts owner Jim Irsay quickly refuted the claims. He took to X (formerly Twitter), stating that the idea of fake crowd noise at the RCA Dome was completely false. Irsay explained that what people heard during a 2007 Patriots-Colts game was due to a TV broadcast issue, not the stadium’s sound system.

CBS, the network broadcasting the game, had admitted that the audio anomaly was caused by tape feedback in their production truck, unrelated to any noise in the stadium.

The Colts issued a similar statement in 2007, dismissing the accusations. The current home of the Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, is not typically considered one of the NFL’s loudest venues, unlike stadiums such as Arrowhead, Seattle’s Centurylink Field, New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome, and Minnesota’s US Bank Stadium.

Interestingly, Belichick had a memorable moment at the RCA Dome in 2009, when his decision to attempt a failed fourth-down conversion allowed the Colts to stage a comeback and win 35-34. Reflecting on the incident in 2012, Belichick joked that after that call, he received a warmer reception in Indianapolis than before.