CBS cut to a commercial as Bills coach Sean McDermott challenged a sideline catch. McDermott lost the challenge and then Dolphins then scored a touchdown, but Bills fans had to take the Internet’s word for it.
Citing technical difficulties, CBS lost the feed of the game and switched to the Broncos-Steelers game. CBS ran a crawl at the bottom of the screen, saying the broadcast would return to Miami as soon as the issue was resolved. The TV truck in Miami apparently lost power.
A CBS spokeswoman said, “The network was informed there was a power outage in a quadrant of the stadium that impacted the television trucks. We had to power our trucks back up after the outage and got back as soon as possible.”
The Bills’ radio broadcast remained on the air, with John Murphy and Steve Tasker working from Bills Stadium and watching the game on large monitors. They were well aware of the TV outage, joking that it “should be a lesson” to Bills fans on the value of the radio.
Among the things that Bills fans missed was Stefon Diggs’ first touchdown catch as a member of the team.
The coverage outage lasted about 20 minutes. Play-by-play announcer Spiro Dedos said about half the stadium went dark.
Bills fans were not happy.
CBS caught a bad case of 2020. #BillsMafia
— ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ ʙᴇᴇʀ ᴡᴏʀᴋs (@communitybeer) September 20, 2020