During his Tuesday press conference, Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said he’s not expecting to have communication issues again when his team plays the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. Even so, you can bet the team will be prepared for such an instance.
On Thursday, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was asked during his media session if he has to expect the unexpected whenever he plays in New England.
“Well, you know, for whatever reason, I’m not saying that there’s always an issue, but there was an issue last time up there. But, that’s why we have hand signals, we have wristbands and we’re ready to move on with whatever we need to do,” Roethlisberger said.
When the Steelers played the Patriots at Gillette Stadium to open the 2015 regular season, their coaches had issues with their communication system during the first half of the game and a agitated Tomlin said after the contest that it’s not the first time the team has had issues such as that.
“We were listening to the Patriots’ radio broadcast for the majority of the first half on our headsets,” Tomlin said during his post-game press conference.
The league quickly issued a statement on what they believed happened that led to the communication issues.
“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,” NFL spokesman Michael Signora wrote. “The coaches’ communications equipment, including the headsets, is provided by the NFL for both clubs use on game day. Once the power issue was addressed, the equipment functioned properly with no additional issues.”
We’ll have to wait and see if the Steelers have any issues with their communication system during this trip to Foxboro and if they do, it sounds like they’ll be very prepared for it.
