ESPN: Titans HC Mike Vrabel Calls out NFL Officiating in Email; Rams Eye Rule Changes

Teams across the NFL are tired of inconsistencies in officiating and are ready to do something about it.

Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel went the "reply all" route, CC'ing every NFL head coach, general manager and the league's officiating department in a response to a leaguewide email featuring calls from Week 5, asking for more "consistent" performances from referees.

"I appreciate the time and energy that goes into these videos, but I suggest we devote every minute of our officiating departments' time ensuring our officiating crews are as well trained in the clarifications we worked to create in the offseason and that each crew is as consistent as possible. Thank you," Vrabel said in the email, per ESPN's Adam Schefter.

The Los Angeles Rams reportedly plan to take a more formal route in the offseason, resubmitting a proposal to make all personal foul calls reviewable. Schefter reported the Rams previously submitted a similar plan last year, but the competition committee unanimously voted against it moving forward.

There has been increased frustration over roughing the passer penalties in particular after Atlanta Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jarrett and Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Chris Jones were flagged on extremely questionable calls last week.

The flag on Jarrett allowed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to close out a 21-15 win, while the flag on Jones negated a strip sack and set the Las Vegas Raiders up for a 50-yard field goal. Kansas City would recover to eke out a 30-29 win, but the call could have been a momentum crusher as the Chiefs mounted a 17-point comeback.

There will be some natural hesitance to make penalties reviewable following the disastrous one-year experiment with pass interference in 2019. The NFL implemented the rule amid similar outcry following a missed call in the 2019 NFC Championship Game, but it quickly fell out of favor leaguewide and was taken out the following season.

"In my opinion, we were trying to apply something that we've always been fearful of," Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay told SiriusXM NFL Radio in September 2020. "We didn't know what the total outcome would be, but we were always fearful of putting a totally subjective play into replay."

Allowing reviews on personal fouls would, again, be putting a subjective call in the hands of a review system. It would also open up a can of worms on why some calls are reviewable and others aren't. Opening some calls but not others to review will present the same issues the league faced during the pass interference fiasco in 2019.

While there is understandable frustration over the league's seeming over-protection of quarterbacks, there is always going to be some human error involved in officiating. This is a league that still uses the eye test rather than microchip technology to determine the spot of a ball in an era where tennis can tell you, down to the blade of grass, where a ball hit on a line.

As Schefter noted, roughing the passer penalties are down 45 percent from this point in the 2021 season. This controversy feels a bit reactionary in a sport in which human error is always going to play a factor.