There's a 99 percent chance that this was just an unfortunately timed coincidence, and a one percent chance that the Patriots, as an organization, have nuts that'd humble Paul Bunyan. That's because, earlier tonight, NBC'sAl Michaels told viewers that the headsets for the Steelers' coaches were picking up the radio broadcast of the Patriots during the first quarter (note: this is not to be confused with coach-to-player headsets). As NFL rules dictated, the Pats then had to cease the usage of their own headsets until the problem could be fixed. It was by the second quarter:
Earlier this week, ESPN published a report that unveiled some of the tricks New England has supposedly used to establish (and maintain) dominance since the days of Spygate. One of their many interesting nuggets just so happened to be this:
"At Gillette Stadium, the scrambling and jamming of the opponents' coach-to-quarterback radio line -- "small s---" that many teams do, according to a former Pats assistant coach -- occurred so often that one team asked a league official to sit in the coaches' box during the game and wait for it to happen. Sure enough, on a key third down, the headset went out."
Before coming up with your own conspiracy theories you should know that the NFL currently handles communication devices for both teams in every single game. So it's unlikely that that's the case. Unless you have a great one about Roger Goodell orchestrating this to makeup for his inability to have his Brady suspension stick.
We'd be willing to listen to that.
[via NBC]
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