Rams coach Sean McVay knows his team benefited from a missed call in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game, but he pointed out that his team was hurt by a missed call as well.
McVay noted that on the drive preceding the controversial missed pass interference call, Rams quarterback Jared Goff had his facemask grabbed. If that penalty had been called, the Rams would have had first-and-goal at the 1-yard line, and would have had four chances to gain one yard and take a 24-20 lead. Instead it was third down, and the Rams settled for a field goal.
“When you slow it down, clearly you can see some of the things that took place. If you want to do that on every single play, though, there’s a lot of instances. You want to slow some things down with a facemask on Goff, some different things,” McVay said. “What we try to do a good job of understanding is that it is an imperfect game.”
Problems with NFL officiating go well beyond one call. Week after week, coaches of all 32 teams complain about calls that didn’t go their way. But the one call that went against the Saints has taken on a much higher profile -- higher even than the one that went against the Rams minutes earlier -- and might be the missed call that finally makes the NFL take significant actions to improve officiating.
