Sunday's matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals at Paycor Stadium was expected to be quite ugly with Jake Browning starting for the home side and the Steelers dealing with the aftermath of firing offensive coordinator Matt Canada. The first half was, indeed, filled with ugly football but the game ground to a halt about halfway through the second quarter for an entirely unexpected reason-- multiple clock malfunctions.

It seems that a few play clocks in the stadium that were in the eyesight of the players were not working. With the Bengals facing a third-and-five the referees had to get on the mic and ask the clock operators to fix them a couple of times before giving up and just asking the operator to shut off the clocks entirely. It was bizarre.

Normally this wouldn't affect the viewers at home but the CBS scorebug malfunctioned in concert with the clocks at the field in a very obvious way.

It's not news that strange things tend to happen during AFC North games but this is a new one. Don't think I can remember a referee ever having to ask the stadium personnel to turn a clock off mid-game.

The score was 7-3 entering the half so maybe a full two quarters of working clocks will encourage some yards and points. Probably not. But maybe!

This article was originally published on thebiglead as Steelers-Bengals Had a Bunch of Weird Clock Problems .