The Pittsburgh Steelers will reportedly file a complaint with the league office for both the equipment failure and for the officials not turning off headsets for both teams, according to Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was clearly frustrated with the headsets issue after the loss to the New England Patriots 28-21.
"We were listening to the Patriots' radio broadcast for the majority of the first half on our headsets, coach to coach. I'm not indicating anything; I'm telling you what happened. We let the league officials on site handle it, is what we do," Said Tomlin, via Steelers.com. "That's always the case," Tomlin said about playing at Gillette Stadium.
The broadcast was reportedly so loud that the Steelers had trouble communicating, and an NFL rule called the Equity Rule states that if one team's headsets are not working then the other team has to remove their headsets. Oddly, though, whenever officials or NFL representatives proceeded to the Patriots sideline to make them remove their headsets, the Steelers headsets started to work fine, and once that representative or official left the New England sideline the Steelers headsets began to receive Patriots' broadcasts again, according to Bob Labriola of Steelers.com.
The 2015 season started off right where it left off, and that is a controversy around the Patriots again. The game seemed to focus on this headset issue, but the Steelers made plenty of mistakes during the game as well, including not being able to defend Patriot tight end Rob Gronkowski.
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said after the game that they also were having headset issues, but it reportedly wasn't causing as many problems for the New England sideline, according to Robinson.
"We had to switch headphones a couple times, the communication system wasn't very good. We deal with that, it seems like, weekly," Belichick said, via Yahoo! Sports. "We almost had to switch helmets with (Tom) Brady there at the end. Couldn't get the plays to him. It was a problem all night."
The NFL put out a statement regarding the headsets issue.
"In the first quarter of tonight's game, the Pittsburgh coaches experienced interference in their headsets caused by a stadium power infrastructure issue, which was exacerbated by the inclement weather," said NFL spokesman Michael Signora, via NFL.com.
The league also released another statement saying, "Technological and stadium infrastructure issues of this type happen at many stadiums around the league and whenever there are issues of this nature, we do a thorough review," according to Michael David Smith of Profootballtalk.com.
It is unclear how the league will review this dilemma, but it is likely to take a different route than how they handled the Brady/Deflategate case. There has been a long standing issue with the Patriots and headset issues, as the Steelers now become the fifth case to be added to a list of teams who have had headset problems while playing the Patriots, according to Smith.
