Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, like so many Patriots opponents who have gone before him, had some trouble with the sideline communication headset in his helmet during Super Bowl LI.
Falcons’ headset problems may have forced them to burn a critical timeout late in the Super Bowl
It’s not the reason Atlanta lost the game, but it didn’t help.
Jeanna Kelley has been covering the Falcons for The Falcoholic since 2011 and the NFL for SB Nation since 2015.
Video shows Ryan talking to an official, then walking to the sideline looking frustrated.
Ryan wasn’t the only Falcons quarterback who couldn’t hear the plays on his headset. Practice squad quarterback Matt Simms appeared to be having a similar issue when he spoke to Ryan on the sideline.
It was definitely a shit show. The Falcons let a 25-point lead slip away to lose to the Patriots in overtime, and it is possible the headset malfunction had something to do with it.
The Falcons had to burn a timeout to deal with the malfunction. With 30 seconds left in regulation and the game tied, they had to waste a down spiking the ball to stop the clock, when a timeout would have come in handy.
But mostly, the Falcons just blew it. They stopped running the ball in the second half with a comfortable lead. There’s a reason conventional football wisdom suggests that running the ball in that situation is a good idea. It often works. What the Falcons did, well, that didn’t work.
Still, this isn’t the first shady incident to be connected with the Patriots and New England’s Super Bowl LI win. Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s backpack with the Super Bowl game plan in it went missing during Opening Night, and there are plenty of reasons to believe this game was totally rigged.
Believing that it was rigged might make it a little easier for Falcons fans, anyway.
The origins of the NFL’s QB communication system
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