Byline: JUDD ZULGAD; STAFF WRITER
A special section previewing the NFC Championship Game will be included in your Sunday Star Tribune, and a special section with complete postgame coverage will appear in Monday's Star Tribune.
The din created by more than 70,000 fans who will fill the Louisiana Superdome on Sunday will cause headaches for many, short-term hearing loss for some and make communication nearly impossible. Unless you're a member of the Vikings offense. That unit plans to deal with the deafening roar by not saying a word, at least at the line of scrimmage. For the first time this season, the Vikings are likely to spend an entire game using the silent count -- meaning quarterback Brett Favre will trigger the snap of the ball with actions. It might not be ideal, but teams have long used silent counts in noisy environments where it's difficult for the interior linemen and running backs to hear and impossible for the tackles and wide receivers to pick up what is being said by the quarterback. 'Every team does it,' Favre said. 'If you come play Minnesota in Minnesota and you try cadence in shotgun, that's not going to work. If you play in New Orleans and you try cadence in shotgun, it's not going to work. Now you might not feel very comfortable with silent count, but it's your best option because if you're relying on hearing the quarterback call signals, somebody is going to miss it.' Vikings continues on
Practice makes ...
The Vikings opened the season working from the silent count against Cleveland and have used it at points in every road game since.
Each week in practice, artificial crowd noise was turned up as the offense ran through various drills at the Vikings' indoor facility at Winter Park, simulating the conditions the Vikings will face Sunday when some players will wear custom-made earplugs.
'You work on it all the time, really,' Vikings center John Sullivan said. 'Any time you're playing on the road we use the silent count and then quite a bit in training camp. It's pretty common among all teams. You see a little variation between offenses, but everybody has some form of it because NFL stadiums are so loud.'
The principles of using the silent count are actually pretty simple. The quarterback provides some type of predetermined motion on which the center will snap the ball. Sullivan called it 'a combination of nonverbal communications between everybody on offense.'
Discipline is essential because while the center has an eye on the quarterback --and that isn't necessarily easy in the shotgun formation -- the other offensive linemen must keep an eye on the football.
This is especially tough for the tackles who are lined up on the outside of the line; one wrong move will mean a false-start penalty.
'You have to get in a rhythm with your center and have an idea of when he's going to snap it,' left tackle Bryant McKinnie said.
Phil Loadholt, the Vikings' rookie right tackle, said it's imperative to be quick once the ball moves, because the linemen must go from focusing on the ball to looking up and blocking as soon as the snap occurs. McKinnie, for example, will have to shift his focus quickly to Saints right end Will Smith, who was second in the NFC with 13 sacks. That means Smith will have the advantage of getting a first step.
'You're trying to use your peripheral [vision], trying to see both [the ball and the lineman], but at the end of the day you concentrate a little bit more on the ball and just have to use technique to get back a certain way,' McKinnie said. 'I can try to focus on him after the ball is snapped. So, it's a little harder.'
The silent count isn't a big deal for wide receivers, because they have long been coached to watch the ball.
The Vikings' most noticeable glitch in a silent-count situation came in their Nov. 1 victory at Green Bay when a surprised Favre was hit in the thigh by Sullivan's snap as he stood in the shotgun in the opening quarter. The loose ball was recovered by the Packers' Johnny Jolly. 'It was a miscommunication at the time, something we worked out,' Sullivan said. 'We'll try to make sure that doesn't happen this week.'
The art of silence
Troy Aikman played in countless noisy stadiums during a 12-year career in which he won three Super Bowls as a member of the Dallas Cowboys. But the former quarterback, and current lead NFL analyst for Fox, said the silent count employed in his day was different.
'Teams are not as rhythmic with the silent counts as they once were,' said Aikman, who will work the Vikings-Saints game. 'It used to be the center would look back, the quarterback would either show him his hands or lift a foot and then he'd raise his head and hike the ball.
'Now, they call it in the huddle. Just like they would on a normal snap count they'll say one, two or three and the quarterback may give the foot a few different times. It may be the center raising his head more than once. They are able to in essence kind of use a hard count or at least keep the defense from knowing exactly when the ball is being snapped.'
Studying signals for what indicates the snap on the silent count is common. Thus it's necessary for offenses to mix up the signals between the center and quarterback, just as a pitcher and catcher do in baseball when a runner is on second base.
'It's just like any other count,' said Artis Hicks, the Vikings' top backup at guard and tackle. 'When you have a regular cadence, you have to be able to change it up and go on different counts. The silent count is no different. If you don't, guys are so good in this league, you're going to put your offensive line at such a huge disadvantage and that's going to trickle down to the quarterback.'
In the Superdome, the silent count will have to be employed when Favre is in shotgun and even could be used when he's directly under center. The 19-year-veteran will do his best to throw off the Saints by using dummy signals.
'Obviously there are going to be different counts to snap the ball on so you might think you have it on the first tell, don't believe the first tell, it might be the second tell, could be the third tell,' Vikings quarterbacks coach Kevin Rogers said.
Rogers admits it becomes far more difficult to change plays, though, because Favre can't easily bark out signals, or alerts, at the last second.
'Having to deal with [noise] is a huge factor,' said Favre, who often talked about how difficult it was for him to play in the Metrodome when he was a member of the Packers. 'I think it was a big factor in us winning this past week [against Dallas at home]. I know offensively we were able to use the count and have them show things that they didn't want to show or get them to jump. You lose that luxury when you're playing away.
'You practice it, prepare for it, but there's no way we could pump the noise up in here [that is the same]. It's not the Superdome. I've been in there and I've also been in our place here as a visitor. It ain't a whole lot of fun.'
NFC TITLE GAME vikings at new orleans
5:40 p.m. Sunday - Superdome - Ch. 9 (1130-AM, 100.3-FM)
