‘Technical difficulties’ cut CBS’ Dolphins-Bills feed in 1st half and everyone had jokes

David Wilson, Barry Jackson
2 min read
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It was the ultimate nightmare for a network on Sunday: Losing the feed of an NFL game.

CBS couldn’t air about four minutes of actual game time of the Dolphins-Bills game on Sunday because of a loss of power in a quadrant of Hard Rock Stadium.

The technical difficulties took the game off the air late in the first quarter and early in the second quarter.

“I’m wondering if they didn’t pay the electric bill down there in Miami,” joked Rich Gannon, who was calling the Pittsburgh Steelers-Denver Broncos game, which CBS cut to following the outage.

The outage forced Dolphins fans to miss some good and some bad.

Wide receiver DeVante Parker caught a touchdown at the end of the first quarter and rookie cornerback Noah Igbinoghene recovered a fumble, but Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs also caught a touchdown to put Buffalo ahead by seven in the second quarter.

Miami fans and Bills fans alike were frustrated, and everyone had jokes while CBS was forced to show Steelers-Broncos instead.

The feed finally returned in the second quarter after about 20 minutes of real time, just in time to show the Dolphins punt away to Buffalo.

In the meantime, almost everyone had to follow the game by monitoring the Twitter feeds of beat reporters in Miami Gardens. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a limited capacity of about 13,000 fans at Hard Rock this season.

The timing of the outage was particularly frustrating for Dolphins fans. Wide receiver Preston Williams had just caught a long pass near the goal line and the Bills were in the middle of an unsuccessful challenge. The referees’ decision was made after the outage and then Ryan Fitzpatrick threw a short touchdown to Parker to tie the game in the first quarter. Miami then recovered a Buffalo fumble on the next play from scrimmage.

CBS did not have a backup generator at the stadium because networks typically only bring those to games being televised to large audiences. The Dolphins-Bills game was seen in only 6 percent of the country.

CBS sent Dolphins-Bills viewers back to the Steelers-Broncos game after lightning around Hard Rock Stadium forced a third-quarter delay in the Dolphins game. That delay began less than a minute into the second half and lasted 36 minutes.

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