The NFL has reminded coaches and team personnel that conversations with officiating staff are supposed to stay private, even as the league encourages referees to answer questions candidly, according toNFL Network's Ian Rapoport.
The memo says those exchanges are "confidential" and should not be discussed publicly.
The reminder follows Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay's comments Wednesday that the league agreed with him that cornerback Josh Wallace should not have been flagged for defensive pass interference in the team's loss to the Denver Broncos in Week 3.
It's not clear whether McVay, a member of the competition committee, had clearance to share the league's view, according to Front Office Sports. The NFL declined to comment on McVay's comment,
and the Rams did not immediately say whether McVay received permission or not from the league to discuss the conversation.
The league's own game operations manual complicates matters. It says the league office "encourages NFL Officiating to respond candidly" to questions from head coaches and club employees after each game, and that officiating is obligated to give its factual opinion of each call, per FOS, and thattTeams can forward up to 10 questions on officiating and replay after a game.
Coaches have also shared such conversations before, so the discussions aren't always treated as confidential in practice.
"There was never a message to not say anything," a former NFL head coach told FOS. "But it doesn't change the outcome." An NFL team executive also told FOS he couldn't recall being told not to comment on such an issue, though he is always wary of the league penalizing what it considers impermissible conduct.
The league's weekly officiating video, sent to all teams, did not address the debatable pass interference calls in the Rams-Broncos and Cowboys-Ravens games, FOS reported.
McVay has already moved on from the call itself.Asked by ESPN whether defensive pass interference should be reviewable, like it was for one season in 2019, McVay said, "Those are things that I'll worry about at a later date," and called it a subjective call. He pointed to the league's experiment with reviewing the call, which followed a missed flag that went the Rams' way. That, he said, "opened up a can of worms." He also said he wouldn't play the victim when asked about the call this past Monday.
Whether the NFL does anything beyond the memo remains to be seen.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: NFL sends memo after Sean McVay revealed missed call convo with league
