The Patriots have played only 1 game this season, and they've already been accused of cheating


Are the Patriots cheating already? The Steelers, who lost to New England 28-21 Thursday night in the first game of the NFL season, sure seem to think so. Bob Labriola, who wrote a recap of the game for the Steelers' official website, appended an overtly suspicious paragraph at the end of his summary suggesting it was "no surprise at all" that the Steelers' coaches suffered issues with their headsets while playing the Pats on their home turf:
This is the kind of stuff that happens to the visiting team in Gillette Stadium all the time. From the start of the game through the opening 14 minutes of the first quarter, the Steelers' coaches' headsets were receiving the Patriots Radio Network broadcast of the game. The broadcast was so loud that the Steelers coaches were unable to communicate, and the NFL rule is that if one team's headsets are not working the other team is supposed to be forced to take their headsets off. It's what the NFL calls the Equity Rule. Strangely enough, whenever an NFL representative proceeded to the New England sideline to shut down their headsets, the Steelers headsets cleared. Then as the representative walked away from the New England sideline, the Steelers' headsets again started to receive the Patriots game broadcast. [Steelers]
The Patriots hit the road for their next game against the Bills on September 20. While it's a little harder to pull off headset hijinx at an away game, you know what they say: Where there's a will, there's a way.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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