No matter what other teams say, headset issues in the NFL aren’t unique to Gillette Stadium.
The New England Patriots’ headsets malfunctioned at various points Sunday in their 36-20 win over the Saints in New Orleans, namely before the game and during halftime. And Patriots head coach Bill Belichick explained Monday on WEEI’s “Dale & Holley with Keefe” that it’s rare to get through any game without some sort of communication issue.
“It happens all the time,” Belichick said, per WEEI.com. “Sometimes more than others, but very seldom do you go through a game without either a press box communication or coach-quarterback communication — I’m not even talking about the tablets and all that, that is a whole other story — I am just saying the communication from press box-to-sideline-to coach. It’s pretty common.”
According to Belichick, the biggest problems arise when it comes to the NFL’s equity rules, which call for the opposing team’s headsets to be cut off if those on the other side aren’t functioning properly. The head coach praised Patriots IT director Dan Famosi for his help Sunday but added that it can be difficult to fix NFL-provided equipment on the fly.
“From my standpoint, if something is wrong before the game, that’s different than if something is wrong during the game that was right at the start of the game,” Belichick said. “I feel like that needed some clarification. It’s really between the teams and the league — internally we can control what we need to control and that is rarely an issue. I mean a battery might go dead or something, but we’ll fix that. That’s fairly easy. The hard part is the networking and the cutoffs and so forth, especially with the coach to quarterback. If they click the button and cut you off when you think you’re on, that’s a problem. That is just another element of that.”
Ultimately, though, Belichick was happy with the way defensive coordinator Matt Patricia and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, both of whom had the most issues, got through it.
“I just thought Matt and Josh did a great job handling multiple situations that came up over the course of the game and it actually started before the game,” Belichick said. “I thought they did a good job working through it.”
Thumbnail photo via Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports Images
