Belichick: Issues With Tablets 'Didn't Affect Outcome' Of AFC Championship
BOSTON (CBS) -- A lot of factors led to the Patriots' 20-18 loss to the Denver Broncos in Sunday's AFC Championship Game.
The offensive line was terrible, and Tom Brady took a beating. His receivers couldn't get open thanks to some stellar defense by the Denver secondary, and Bill Belichick made a few questionable calls that had people playing armchair coach when the clock hit zero on Sunday.
All of that played into the loss. But there's one thing Belichick won't blame: Shoddy tablets on the sidelines.
The Patriots had issues with their tablets during the first half of Sunday's loss, unable to dissect Denver's offensive or defensive formations. Belichick was asked about the outage on Monday, and simply shrugged it off.
"It is what it is. It's a pretty common problem," said Belichick. "We have ways of working through it. There is really nothing you can do. It's not like the headsets where a side is affected. You just deal with it. We've had it at home, on the road.
"That didn't affect the outcome of the game, no way," he added. "Just part of it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."
Back in New England's season-opening win over the Steelers, Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin complained that their headsets went out and he was stuck listening to 98.5 The Sports Hub's Bob Socci and Scott Zolak's call of the game in the first half.
Imagine if the AFC Championship Game was in New England and Denver's tablets had gone out. It would have been mass hysteria on social media and Ted Wells would likely have another multi-million dollar investigation to conduct for the NFL.
Belichick said the Patriots always have photos of the opposing team's formations printed out just in case a situation like Sunday's comes up, so they were prepared for the temporary outage in Denver. He said in most cases those printouts are more dependable (sorry, Microsoft).
Technology. It's great when it works.
