On several occasions during the 2024 regular season, on-field officials missed blatant facemask fouls. Last month, NFL rules analyst Walt Anderson explained that the referee and umpire often miss such infractions, because they’re positioned behind the play.

Anderson also said that replay assist will likely expand by 2025 to include such obvious fouls.

On Monday night, it looked like the league office might have gotten a head start.

In the fourth quarter of the Vikings-Rams game, L.A. running back Kyren Williams had his mask grabbed by Minnesota linebacker Blake Cashman. No flag was thrown.

Then, referee John Hussey conferred with umpire Terry Killens, Jr. After their meeting, Hussey announced the penalty.

On the broadcast, Joe Buck said, “We never saw a flag.”

“No, and I don’t know where that came from,” ESPN rules analyst Russell Yurk said. “They definitely talked about it afterwards, and I don’t know where it came from.”

Asked Buck, “Am I wrong in saying that they cannot throw a flag in essence from New York?”

“Yeah, I don’t think it came from New York,” Yurk said, not answering the question directly. “I did see a flag come in late. And so I think they talked about it on the field. I don’t think they would have thrown this from New York.”

Yurk could have stated things more strongly, perhaps but for his concern that the rule against replay review for facemask fouls might have been ignored.

The procedure is clear. Neither the replay assistant nor the league office may chime in with an instruction to drop a flag for a missed facemask. But the rules can go out the window in a situation like this, where getting it right the wrong way trumps getting it wrong the right way.

The league’s past failures to make facemask fouls subject to replay review was a huge mistake. Ensuring that facemask fouls missed on the field are fixed after the fact will prevent a storm of scrutiny and controversy. And since no one ever knows when and how replay assist is or isn’t activated, all anyone can do is speculate, fueled by the observations of the broadcasters.

That’s the bigger problem. There continues to be no transparency when it comes to replay assist or replay review. In contrast, the UFL has perfected the process of allowing viewers to witness the discussions that result in rulings on the field being overturned or upheld.

Again, if the league inevitably gets it right, we can get behind that. The more troubling concern is what else might be hiding behind the curtain when it comes to the top-secret deployment of the replay processes?