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Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin talked with an official in the first half of the Steelers' game against the Patriots on Thursday night.Credit Jim Rogash/Getty Images

The N.F.L. season is only one game old and already a league eager to move past controversies has its first one. Once again it involves the New England Patriots and strange doings at their stadium.

In the first quarter of Thursday night’s season opener in Foxborough, Mass., the Pittsburgh Steelers coaches said their headsets were filled with the sounds of the Patriots’ radio broadcast of the game, making it hard to communicate with one another.

The N.F.L., which oversees the headsets, blamed technical glitches and the rainy weather, but the Steelers, who fell behind 14-3 in the first half before losing, 28-21, did not sound mollified after the game, wondering aloud, as many teams have, why weird things always seem to happen at the Patriots’ home field.

In a testy postgame news conference, Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin said that his coaches have problems with their headsets every time his team plays at the Patriots’ home, Gillette Stadium. “That’s always the case,” he said.

When asked to clarify, Tomlin said, “I said what I said.”

The Steelers, in an article on their website, went further, suggesting the N.F.L. did not force the Patriots coaches to take off their headsets in keeping with N.F.L. protocols designed to ensure that neither team gains an unfair advantage when equipment malfunctions.

“Strangely enough,” the article said, “whenever an N.F.L. 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.”

Still, Burt Lauten, a spokesman for the Steelers, said Friday that the team would not file a formal complaint with the league.

“We have provided information to N.F.L. representatives regarding issues that occurred Thursday night at Gillette Stadium with our coach-to-coach headset communications system,” he said. “The problem was addressed during the game and we did not have further problems in the second half. We did not file a formal complaint, nor do we plan to do so.”

It was unclear why the Steelers dropped the matter after the obvious ire of Tomlin and other staff members.

N.F.L. stadiums are a stew of communications signals, from fans, broadcast networks and the teams, and interference problems have occurred from time to time, including at Gillette Stadium, which opened in 2002. But given past controversies involving the Patriots, the defending Super Bowl champions, this episode is getting close scrutiny from fans and possibly the league.

The N.F.L. said that the problem was a “stadium infrastructure issue, which was exacerbated by the inclement weather,” and that “once the power issues” were resolved, the headsets worked properly for the rest of the game. The statement did not specify the power issue, but experts said a glitch in regulating the strength of transmission signals or in assigning radio frequencies could have led to mixed-up reception in the equipment.

“Technological and stadium infrastructure issues of this type happen at many stadiums around the league,” Mike Signora, a league spokesman, said Friday. “And whenever there are issues of this nature, we do a thorough review.”

For his part, Patriots Coach Bill Belichick said his coaches also had trouble with their headsets. After the game, he told reporters that “we had a lot of problems” and his coaches had to switch headphones “a couple times.”

He said that there are problems with communication “it seems like weekly” and that N.F.L. officials told him “they were on the verge of shutting it off, but then I guess they got it working.” Belichick added that the communication system that allows coaches to speak to the quarterback via radio also did not function properly.

“We almost had to switch helmets with Brady there at the end — couldn’t get the plays into him,” he said, referring to quarterback Tom Brady. “It was a problem all night.”

Steelers’ Headset Issues

It was not the first communications problems at Gillette Stadium; the Bengals and the Jaguars are among several teams that have complained about malfunctioning headsets there. And Cardinals’ headsets went out in a crucial game at Foxborough in 2008, linebacker Karlos Dansby said in May on Pro Football Talk Live on NBC.

“We had to give hand signals, and we were dead in the water,” he said. “They ran when they wanted to run, they threw it when they wanted to throw.”

Asked if the Patriots were responsible, he said: “Come on, man. Come on. It’s not a secret. They got to do what they got to do to win, man. They’re going to do what they got to do to win. It’s just how they operate.”

Foxborough was also the site of the A.F.C. championship game last January that led to the scandal involving underinflated balls. Brady’s four-game suspension in that matter, in which the Patriots were accused of using partly deflated footballs to give Brady a throwing advantage, was overturned last week, allowing him to play Thursday. The N.F.L. is appealing, and the Patriots’ punishments, loss of draft picks and a fine, stand.

But headset problems are not confined to Gillette Stadium. Coaches have also had issues with their headsets in Heinz Field, where the Steelers play, including in the A.F.C. championship game against the Jets in 2011.

In 2012, Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III said his helmet headset went out late in a game at Tampa Bay, forcing him to complete a successful final drive with no communication from the sideline.

The N.F.L. has struggled to keep all the communication channels clear during games.

An article on the league’s website describes the job of “game day frequency coordinator,” the “unsung hero” who polices frequencies and troubleshoots problems.

“Southwest Airlines pilots’ conversations, a rehearsal for a concert by Madonna and a food concession worker’s request for more popcorn all have one thing in common: Each has interfered with the frequency that delivers a coach’s play calls to his quarterback,” the article said.

“It all happened because too many people were trying to communicate using the same channel and frequency during an N.F.L. game,” the article said.

Still, some telecommunications experts said that, given the controls the N.F.L. uses to prevent overlapping signals, they were surprised Steelers coaches would have heard a radio broadcast in their headsets.

A problem regulating the power of transmissions could be a culprit.

“Stadiums are much more active and dense radio environments these days,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst at Abelian Research, which focuses on wireless technology. “But with the underlying mechanisms — not just that there are licensed bands and there are quite good interference mitigation designs in Wi-Fi — the result would be a lack of connectivity, not cross talk and getting the wrong signals.”

Karl Voss, a game day frequency coordinator based in Arizona who was not at Thursday’s game and has no direct knowledge of what occurred, said the heavy rain could also have contributed to the problems.

“Water has this amazing ability to get into places,” he said. “Stranger things have happened with water and electronics.”

Voss said that many stadiums he has visited have underground wiring that is not properly weatherproofed.

But in the end, football stadiums are complex technological environments.

“Everyone seems to think it’s a God-given right to bring their tablets to the game to keep track of their fantasy football,” Voss said. “It’s not unusual now for a print journalist to have a wireless mike, too. All of that adds to the complexity” of radio communications.

Whatever the source of the problem, headsets were trending on Twitter Thursday night, as Patriots defenders and detractors, still recovering from eight months of deflation jokes, were back at it.