The Steelers may have been irate about malfunctioning headsets during the first half of Thursday's season opener against the Patriots in Gillette Stadium, but the team chose not to file a complaint with the NFL. Good thing too, since the league cleared the Patriots of any wrongdoing on Friday.
Despite the never-ender speculation surrounding the Pats' perceived organizational philosophy of skirting the rules, not only did they do nothing wrong in Headsetgate (that the league is responsible for providing and maintaining the headsets might have something to do with that), the problem isn't unique to Gillette Stadium.
"It’s a league problem. It’s wherever," Panthers coach Ron Rivera said, via PFT. "It will go out right in the middle and not just here or in New England or in San Francisco, but it could go out in a critical time."
Other coaches also weighed in on the phenomenon.
Cowboys coach Jason Garrett: "That’s certainly been a part of having to deal with game-day situations, throughout my career as a player and a coach."
Speaking of the Cowboys, here's Texans coach Bill O'Brien: "It happened in Dallas, it happens here, it happens wherever I’ve been."
Eagles coach Chip Kelly: "I’ve heard a lot of things on the headsets, I think there’s a lot of frequency issues some places. I’ve heard air traffic control and a lot of different things."
First-year Jets coach Todd Bowles: "It’s happened a bunch of other places. There have been times when the headsets have gone out, it wasn’t New England, I can’t remember the places we’ve had it, but we’ve had some of those headset problems."
So yes, while the Patriots have been heavily scrutinized for everything from Spygate to Deflategate to garden-variety gamesmanship, nonworking headsets are a league-wide problem.
