PHOENIX – The Rams' two rule change proposals stemming from the two-point conversion play in the fourth quarter of their Week 16 game against the Seahawks will not be among the many slated to be discussed at this week's NFL annual league meeting.
Head coach Sean McVay on Monday confirmed they withdrew those proposals, citing both the randomness of the play and the unlikelihood of receiving the minimum 24 votes of 32 votes from team owners needed to pass.
"What happened was, being on the competition committee, what we were trying to do, there's so many layers the way that these rules are written, that sometimes you open up Pandora's box with other things," McVay said. "And so what it really got down to is that specific play was so random. In essence, what we were trying to do is get it to fall under the same confines of a fumble being able to be advanced under two minutes in a point-after attempt, or really, on a fourth down. It would have had to be really tricky, and the way that we wrote it didn't have enough really support. It was random enough, and so we just ended up saying, let's figure out a way to maybe revisit it. But it's the first time something like that's ever come up. It's didn't think it had enough support to ever get close to the 24 votes."
In that Week 16 game, the Seahawks' two-point try appeared to have failed given Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold's pass had deflected off of outside linebacker Jared Verse. However, officials upon further review ruled that a backward pass and therefore a live ball that Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet recovered for a successfully conversion.
According to Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio, the Rams wanted that to be treated like a fumble in certain situations (fourth down, within the final two minutes of each half, during a try) – such as a backwards pass being tipped by a defender and going past the line of scrimmage, where only the player who fumbled can recover the ball and advance it. In that circumstance, the 2-point play would have been wiped out, via that proposal.
The other wrinkle to the play: Florio reported that Prime Video rules analyst Terry McAulay called NFL officiating and rules analyst Walt Anderson, implicating the review – which triggered 100 seconds after the play – was activated by that phone call. The second proposal wanted to limit the time to initiate a replay review to 40 or 60 seconds. McVay said the flaw in that proposal was "hand-in-hand with the previous one," though in talking to NFL competition committee chairman Rich McKay, there was an agreement and an intention in wanting to get that right.
"It was really hard the way that we had to write it, just because of the semantics of the rules. So then when I was explaining it, I did feel that exact way," McVay said, when asked if the proposals were emotion-driven in the moment, and then he realized, as he's trying to explain it, that it doesn't make a lot of sense. "I'm like, 'Man, this is, ... if I'm having to feel like I'm putting a Rubik's Cube together, this is probably too complex.' But yes, actually, that's probably an accurate way to assess it. It was emotional."
Still, McVay emphasized that he's "never going to make excuses," and that it's a play that shouldn't be rewarded, even if it had gone the other way and benefitted the Rams in the moment.
"I would imagine that most people would agree, though, that that specific play, if you're just watching it as a casual fan, and you're saying, 'Alright, they're trying to throw a perimeter screen, is that something that really should be rewarded?' I think even if you talked to (Seahawks head coach) Mike Macdonald, (the answer would be) no," McVay said. "Now, it was accurately officiated based on the way that it unfolded, but we were really trying to say, like, this is a play that, it's a perimeter screen, it goes backwards, so let's have it be like what those fumbles were. And it just got too complex. So there was some emotions, but I can say far enough away from it now, that is a play that I don't think, even if it benefited us, should be rewarded."
