Another day, another controversy.
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was quite upset during his postgame press conference after his team’s 28-21 loss to the New England Patriots. His anger was directed at the headset issues the Steelers faced during the first half of Thursday night’s game at Gillette Stadium.
Tomlin said the coaches could only hear the Patriots’ radio broadcast for “most of the first half” and that it’s not the first time he’s experienced headset issues at Gillette Stadium.
Here’s a full transcript of Tomlin’s postgame comments regarding the headsets.
Q: There was an ESPN report that your radio went out, your communication?
MT: That’s always the case.
Q: Here?
MT: Yes.
Q: Are you saying that every time you play here –
MT: I said what I said.
Q: What exactly happened?
MT: We were listening to the Patriots’ radio broadcast for the majority of the first half on our headsets.
Q: Coach-to-coach or coach-to-quarterback?
MT: Coach-to-coach.
Q: The fact that there are miscommunications in a regular-season game, how frustrating is that?
MT: It’s not. It’s part of it. Hopefully we’ll be better and be better really soon. I like the effort of the guys tonight. We played a good team tonight. They executed at a high level. They changed the pace. They have continuity and veteran players. We understand that. We have to continue to grow.
Q: Is there anything you can do when that happens? Do you alert the official? Did they shut their headphones?
MT: We let the league officials on-site handle it, is what we did.
Q: Did you get satisfaction?
MT: Eventually.
The Steelers weren’t the only ones having technical difficulties, though. Patriots coach Bill Belichick also was having a tough time with his headset.
“We had a lot of problems,” Belichick said. “We had to switch headphones a couple times. The communication system wasn’t very good. We deal with that it seems like weekly. Yeah, they told us they were on the verge of shutting it off, but then they I guess they got it working. I don’t know, but it was a problem the whole game. We almost had to switch helmets with (Tom) Brady there at the end — couldn’t get the plays into him. It was a problem all night.”
After the game, the NFL released a statement explaining the situation. So it appears “Headsetgate” was over before it even started.
Thumbnail photo via Stew Milne/USA TODAY Sports Images
