NFL officials this spring had more access to the decision-making process on the rules than ever before. Some were invited to competition committee meetings, others were aggressively questioned by coaches during their site visits at OTAs. And the officials have one more chance to weigh in, at the annual officiating clinic set for July 11-14 in Dallas.
The NFL doesn’t do much by mistake, and it’s fair to surmise this wasn’t an accident either.
The reason is simple and straightforward: On-boarding pass interference into the review system has been anything but a straight-line process. The Hall of Fame Game is six weeks from today, and the season opener five weeks after that, and we still don’t have finality on how the process will work.