The Patriots and Steelers played Thursday night in the NFL’s first game back from its disastrous offseason. The game was quite a spectacle; even before it started, the Patriots got their rings, quarterback Tom Brady took a victory lap to the tune of Nas’ “Hate Me Now” and rapper T-Pain performed his hit “All I Do is Win”; there was even a performance from the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. If all that wasn’t surreal enough, the actual game itself began, and the Steelers almost immediately had some problems with their headsets.
This is what happened, as told by Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com:
It wouldn’t be a New England Patriots game without some drama involving off-the-field strategy.
Pittsburgh Steelers coaches were upset that their coach-to-coach headsets picked up the Patriots’ radio broadcast for the majority of the first half of Thursday night’s game, which New England went on to win 28-21.
When pressed after the game, an unhappy Mike Tomlin said headset issues have occurred repeatedly in New England.
“That’s always the case. Yes. I said what I said,” Tomlin said.
Blake Jones, NFL director of football operations, went down to the field to help with the headsets. The league described the reception problem as “intermittent.”
When asked if he got a satisfactory resolution, Tomlin said: “Eventually.” Tomlin is a member of the league’s competition committee.
Because it was not a complete system failure, New England’s coaches were not required to shut down their headsets during the repairs. However, the Patriots said they experienced issues as well.
“We had a lot of problems,” Bill Belichick said. “We had to switch headphones a couple of times. The communication system wasn’t very good. We deal with that, it seems, weekly.
Unfortunately, this just so happened to occur during a New England Patriots game. And as is often the case with the Patriots, some, and in particular Steeler fans, are jumping to the conclusion that the headsets are the reason why they won, and that simply isn’t the case.
It wasn’t the headsets, it just wasn’t. While they probably didn’t help their cause, the Steelers had plenty of opportunities to get on the scoreboard while the technical difficulties were occuring. For example, Pittsburgh’s first drive took all of five plays to get 56 yards down field to the Pats’ 24; 33 of these yards came by way of fill-in running back DeAngelo Williams’ ground exploits. Then, offensive coordinator Todd Haley dialed up this play, which was, um, something:
TRICK PLAY ALERT! Antonio Brown looks to throw the ball and … not good. #Kickoff2015#PITvsNEhttp://t.co/KinBbSoKvK
— NFL (@NFL) September 11, 2015
The drive stalled after that play and a 10-yard holding penalty subsequently after. Kicker Josh Scobee came onto the field and proceeded to shank a 44-yard field goal attempt well wide to the right.
After a second-quarter New England touchdown, Big Ben and the Steeler offense got back to work, and Roethlisberger connected with Darrius Heyward-Bey on a 43-yard bomb to the Patriot 35. After a Williams 6-yard run, the drive came to a halt, bringing Scobee back into the game for a 46-yard try. Scobee would miss to the right again, and the Patriots would be well on their way after a score on their next drive.
New England would go up 21-3 at the beginning of the second half, and while the Steelers would mount a mini-comeback in the fourth quarter, it wouldn’t be nearly enough. The Patriots would win 28-21, and that score was in part because of an Antonio Brown touchdown catch with two seconds to play.
So why did the Steelers lose this game, anyway? If you listen to them, they might talk at length about the headset issues and how they were negatively affected by them. And they may also complain about something else, as reported by USA Today’s Tom Pelissero:
Trouble with headsets wasn’t all that had the Pittsburgh Steelers upset during Thursday night’s loss to the New England Patriots.
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger vigorously protested after left tackle Kelvin Beachum was called for a false start on third-and-goal from the Patriots’ 1-yard line – an infraction triggered by the New England line sliding during Roethlisberger’s snap count.
“I thought that there was a rule against that,” Roethlisberger told reporters. “Maybe there’s not. Maybe it’s just an unwritten rule. … We saw it on film, that the Patriots do that. They shift and slide and do stuff on the goal line, knowing that it’s an itchy trigger finger-type down there.”
Left guard Ramon Foster, who also moved on the play, confirmed the Steelers had seen it on film and players were told it’s legal, provided the Patriots don’t cross the line of scrimmage.
“They time it up in the cadence,” Foster told USA TODAY Sports, smiling and shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s one of the things they do. Welcome to Foxborough.”
There is a rule against “attempting to disconcert Team A at snap by words or signals,” but a routine line slide wouldn’t seem to expressly violate that. An NFL spokesman did not immediately respond to a request seeking clarification early Friday morning.
Okay, let’s be perfectly clear here. The Patriots’ pre-play activity in the trenches is 100% legal. Sliding defenders from side to side to affect the cadence of the offense is a legal maneuver because the Patriots did not jump offsides. It’s even a move that I used to attempt to pull in Madden; it never worked for me, but it worked beautifully for Belichick’s team on Thursday.
There are myriad reasons why the Steelers lost to the Patriots Thursday. It certainly could not have helped them that they were without three of their best players (Le’Veon Bell, Martavis Bryant, Maurkice Pouncey) due to injury and, in the cases of Bell and Bryant, suspension. In part because of this, as well as the motivation the Patriots got from the DeflateGate ruling, Brady’s Bunch was simply the better team Thursday.
A malfunctioning headset or two can’t change that fact.