Throughout the first quarter of Thursday's game against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium, Pittsburgh Steelers coaches struggled with malfunctioning headsets. The headsets played the Patriots Radio Network's game broadcast, making communication between coaches difficult or impossible. When officials came to check the headsets, they resumed normal function, only to fail again once officials departed.
Steelers website implies Patriots were selectively tampering with headsets
“This is the kind of stuff that happens to the visiting team in Gillette Stadium all the time.”
Jim Rogash/Getty Images
After the game, the Steelers used their official game recap to slam the Patriots, suggesting that New England may have intentionally disrupted the headsets and saying that this sort of behavior is “no surprise at all.”
NO SURPRISE AT ALL
This is the kind of stuff that happens to the visiting team in Gillette Stadium all the time. From the start of the game through the opening 14 minutes of the first quarter, the Steelers’ coaches’ headsets were receiving the Patriots Radio Network broadcast of the game. The broadcast was so loud that the Steelers coaches were unable to communicate, and the NFL rule is that if one team’s headsets are not working the other team is supposed to be forced to take their headsets off. It’s what the NFL calls the Equity Rule. Strangely enough, whenever an NFL representative proceeded to the New England sideline to shut down their headsets, the Steelers headsets cleared. Then as the representative walked away from the New England sideline, the Steelers’ headsets again started to receive the Patriots game broadcast. (emphasis added)
In a statement, the NFL attributed the malfunctioning Steelers headsets to a "stadium power infrastructure issue."
The Steelers do not appear to believe that this was the case.
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