In 2014, Microsoft signed a $400 million deal with the NFL to ensure that its Surface tablets would become "the official tablet of the NFL." Microsoft wanted coaches and players to use its systems from the sidelines.

That promotion hasn't been entirely successful. Casters routinely refer to the devices as "iPads," and a number of complaints surfaced about the tablets not working correctly. Those complaints have driven at least one coach, the Patriots' Bill Belichick, to abandon the technology entirely.

A couple of weeks ago, Belichick slammed one of the tablets in frustration. In a press conference today, he delivered a five-minute diatribe bemoaning the technological failures that led the Pats to abandon the Surfaces entirely.

Microsoft's hardware isn't necessarily the culprit here, merely the victim. The NFL uses a lot of wireless hardware—communications headsets, public Wi-Fi networks, private networks for the tablets, networks for the press, and more. Moreover, key portions of the infrastructure, including the tablets themselves, are owned by the NFL itself. Belichick said that although the Patriots' IT person, Dan Famosi, did a "great job" of handling all the systems, he had no power to diagnose or fix problems with the league-provided equipment.

Frustrated by the inconsistency and regular problems, Belichick says he's done with the tablets. He's going to be using binders of plays, written on good, old-fashioned paper.

This isn't the first time that Bill Belichick has struggled with technology. A few years back he bemoaned his inability to set the clock in his Toyota because he couldn't find the clock setting within its computer.