Marino said he first proposed making the custom hearing aids for the St. Louis Rams in 1999. An article from
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch archives on Dec. 7, 1999, explains that the Rams were planning on using them for against the Titans in 1999, but after the devices received some media attention, Jeff Fisher complained. The devices were banned for that game. Titans fans reacted by bringing an extra level of noise, forcing eight false starts from the Rams. The Titans won, 24-21.
However, according to the Post-Dispatch, the NFL dropped the ban after that game on the “noise eliminators,” because they “neither transmit nor interfere with electronic signals.”
The Rams went on to win the Super Bowl at the end of that 1999 season. They defeated Fisher’s Titans.
(A
more recent story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also shares some details of that situation in 1999 and how Fisher’s complaint helped boost the Rams-Titans rivalry.)
The following year, the NFL adopted a trial program for the hearing aids in the preseason. The
St. Louis Business Journal detailed the trial run in 2000, noting that seven teams had signed up to try out the devices. Marino said the Colts were one of those teams.
After the preseason trial run ended, the NFL chose not to adopt a specific policy on the devices. But Marino said that the custom-made pieces were not collected. Instead, players who had them were allowed to keep them.