Why was Steelers vs. Ravens playoff game delayed? Drone flying over M&T Bank Stadium has fans stunned

The Steelers and the Ravens game saw an interruption in the third quarter with the home team leading 28-7 at the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Now, that in itself is not surprising in an NFL game. Injuries often bring the timer to a stop. Coaches can call timeouts. The clock stops if the ball goes out of play.

However, none of that happened and yet there was a delay. It was baffling to see on the broadcast. It only got cleared later on after Pittsburgh had scored another touchdown. Kaylee Hartung came on from the sidelines and revealed that a drone had been spotted and that caused the officials to take safety measures and momentarily halt the game.

Fans were surprised and caught off-guard by that revelation. The USA has faced some serious threats in recent weeks, including right before a college football game on New Year's Day in New Orleans. Observers took to X/Twitter to comment on the whole situation and here are some of the responses.

There was a lot of hilarity in the reactions as well with some saying they were aliens. Others said that they might be Steelers fans who might have wanted to get the game abandoned with their team trailing. Here are some more posts from the social media platform.

"Those east coast drone aliens are at it again. They were just trying to learn what football is" - said one.

"What fool was flying a drone by the stadium?…must’ve been a steeler [sic] fan" - noted another.

"Play was stopped in the Ravens-Steelers game because of a DRONE per an NFL Drone policy?!? When is the American public going to get answers about these drones? Unbelievable." - questioned a third.

"Drone So the reason they paused the ravens steelers [sic] game was because of a drone When are we going to do something about them" - concurred a fourth.

FBI warned about drones in advance of Steelers-Ravens game at M&T Bank Stadium

The appearance of a drone at the M&T Bank Stadium was not surprising considering one appeared during the AFC Championship game against the Chiefs last year. In fact, the FBI had released a statement regarding this prior to this Wild Card round match.

"Last year during the AFC championship game during the Chiefs and the Ravens home game on January 28th of last year, we had several drone incursions into the TFR, temporary flight restrictions... The dangers of flying a drone over a stadium - for starters - you have 70 thousand people, if that drone falls from the sky, you can injure somebody, you can actually kill somebody with a drone." - FBI agent David Rodski had said.

Yet, someone decided to ignore this warning and force an administrative timeout.