Tabletgate hasn't quite become a thing following the New England Patriots-Denver Broncos AFC Championship Game. But on Monday, the NFL acknowledged that there was an issue that caused the Patriots' sideline tablets to malfunction during the second quarter -- and it wasn't a problem with the tablets themselves.
Here's the full statement from NFL Spokesperson Brian McCarthy:
"Near the end of the 1st quarter, we experienced an infrastructure issue on the Patriots sideline that impacted still photos for the coaching tablets. The issue was identified as a network cable malfunction and was resolved during the 2nd quarter. The issue was not caused by the tablets or the software that runs on the tablets. We have experienced no issues with the tablets this season. Any issues were network related."
Is it weird that a "network issue" messed with the Patriots' tablets and not the Broncos' tablets in Denver? Sure. Would there be an uproar if a similar issue occurred for the opposing team at Gillette Stadium? You betcha.
Should you get ready for Tabletgate conspiracy talk and demand an NFL investigation? Nah.
As Bill Belichick said after the game Sunday, tablet malfunctions are a "pretty common problem" in the NFL. It's the same thing that came up when the Pittsburgh Steelers had headset issues at the start of the season in Foxborough.
We're used to hearing this sort of stuff happen to other teams because any minor embers in the "Patriots are cheater" bonfire tend to spark up pretty quickly. On the other hand, we rarely here about these sort of problems on the Patriots' end since Belichick is a stickler for preparing his team for these types of scenarios. In the past, Belichick has gone as far as to make coaches drop their headsets in practice to simulate equipment malfunctions in games.
On Sunday, the Patriots switched back to the old standby -- paper printouts -- when the tablets went down and haven't really spoken much on the topic since -- and likely won't any time soon.
Source: New England Patriots tablet problems in Denver due to 'network cable malfunction,' says NFL
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