During the first quarter of the New England-Pittsburgh NFL season opener, NBC’s Al Michaels reported that Steelers coaches were having trouble with their headsets and were evidently hearing the Pats’ radio broadcast instead of each other. “Hmmmmmm,” thought all of America with a raised eyebrow.
After going back to the story following the initial reports, Michaels impishly asked Cris Collinsworth, “You don’t think, do you?” Collinsworth replied:
“Opponents would not call that trouble. They would call that (pause) — whatever. Every team I know of has some story of what happens to them in this stadium and of course Deflategate was all part of that. That’s not going to help — the fact that they were getting those radios in their headsets.
It it unsettling for a visiting team to come in here and have something like that happen. You want to start the game and say we’re on an equal playing field. I guarantee Mike Tomlin is hot right now.”
Michele Tafoya later reported that the radio call was bleeding into Pittsburgh’s coach-to-coach headsets and once that happened, the Patriots were forced to turn off their headsets because of NFL rules. By the time the first quarter ended, the incident was resolved, according to the NFL. After the game though, Mike Tomlin said the problems persisted for “the majority of the first half.”
“It’s been an ongoing saga in New England,” Michaels said with a sigh.
