Sometimes, interference occurs even before plays
Josh McCown knows the stomach-plunging feeling of approaching the huddle, anticipating a play call to come in through the two orange earphones inside his helmet, and hearing ... nothing.
“You’re waiting, and waiting, and waiting,” McCown, the veteran New York Jets quarterback, said. “Then, after a certain amount of time, you’re like, wait a minute — something’s wrong.”
Even in today’s NFL, with its pylon cameras and sidelines stocked with tablet computers, technical glitches can still hamper one of the game’s most straightforward networks: a one-way radio connecting the offensive coordinator to the quarterback and the defensive coordinator to a designated defensive player.
It happened to the New York Giants coming out of halftime in the season opener at MetLife Stadium; the team had to burn a timeout after quarterback Eli Manning’s radio had gone dead. It happened to Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins and to Indianapolis Colts linebacker Darius Leonard this season as well.
But no team has had more frequent battles with frequency failures than the Jets. Three times in the Jets’ first three games, the headset transmission to QB Sam Darnold stopped working, prompting offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates to remark, “You can FaceTime to China, but our headsets go out.”
In fairness, electronic coach-to-player communication has improved markedly since George Sarles and a General Electric engineer named John Campbell invented a radio system connecting Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown with his quarterback in 1956. The configuration was kept secret till the Detroit Lions noticed a transmitter on the Browns’ sideline; the league banned the technology until 1994.
When it returned, the need for subterfuge diminished, but problems persisted. In early years, it was not unusual for a quarterback to hear sounds from a nearby taxi dispatcher or the team’s radio broadcast instead of his coordinator.
In 2012, the transmissions switched from analog to digital, reducing the recurrence of other phonic intrusions.
But even as the technology has advanced, it is not foolproof. The audio flow from a coach’s headset to the radio transmitter on his belt to the antenna on a nearby cart to the quarterback’s earpieces is still loaded with potential hazards, according to Michelle McKenna-Doyle, the NFL’s chief information officer.
Beginning in 2015, the league licensed enough bandwidth for two exclusive frequencies from the Federal Communications Commission that are assigned on game day specifically for the use of coach-to-player and coach-tocoach interactions for each sideline. Frequency coordinators hired by the league are responsible for maintaining the integrity of those signals, but it is a difficult task.
McKenna-Doyle said the frequency the NFL uses is encrypted to prevent spying. Coordinators constantly monitor the signals for signs of tampering or blocking. And if one sideline loses its radio connection, the other one is shut off to maintain competitive balance. But unintentional interference is almost unavoidable. Frequency coordinators are responsible for registering any device entering the stadium that operates on a frequency near that of a two-way radio, and every stadium is outfitted differently. Occasionally a microphone will get too close, or a radio will turn to the wrong channel, momentarily jamming the signal.