New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick said Tuesday he is giving up on touchline tablet technology, just weeks after he was seen slamming one down in frustration during his team’s defeat to Buffalo.
The famously taciturn Patriots boss spoke at length to explain his frustration with the tablets, which are used by coaches across the NFL to review action in real time.
“As you probably noticed, I’m done with the tablets,” Belichick, 64, told reporters.
“They’re just too undependable for me. I’m going to stick with pictures, which several of our coaches do, as well, because there just isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the tablets. “I just can’t take it anymore.”
Footage of Belichick banging a tablet down angrily during the Pats 16-0 loss to the Bills on October 2 went viral.
“It’s a personal decision,” Belichick said. “I’ll use the paper pictures from here on, because I just have given it my best shot. “I’ve tried to work through the process but it just doesn’t work for me and that’s because there’s no consistency to it.”
The veteran coach said teams were used to dealing with problems occurring in the different technologies used in the league, notably in communications headsets linking coaches and players.
“Overall there’s a lot of complexity to the technology…it’s basically a problem every week. The degrees aren’t always the same but we’re usually dealing with something.”
The NFL signed a five-year deal with Microsoft in 2013 worth $400 million to supply the league with its Surface tablet computers.
Last season Belichick complained about the tablets during his team’s AFC Championship defeat to the Denver Broncos, a glitch later attributed to a network malfunction.
In a statement Tuesday, Microsoft said it respected Belichick’s decision but defended the performance of the Surface.
“We respect Coach Belichick’s decision but stand behind the reliability of the Surface,” Microsoft said. “We continue to receive positive feedback on having Surface devices on the sidelines from coaches, players and team personnel across the league.”
Source: AFP
