There was a time -- oh, about a year ago -- when the NFL wanted no part of a public discussion about officiating. And except in rare occasions, the only reaction it provided to controversial calls was a copy of the applicable rule.

That reticence has softened in 2014, most recently during a rare public exchange with the NFL Referees Association (NFLRA) over a pair of disputed calls. Generally speaking, more officiating talk is better, and we're getting it frequently from vice president of officiating Dean Blandino. (Not coincidentally, both Blandino and executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent recently become active on Twitter as well.)

Officials have noticed, and this week they prompted an important admission into the public sphere. Specifically: Call accuracy isn't nearly as binary as you might think. To "right" or "wrong," the NFL also adds "we understand."

At issue was a blindside block on Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles in Week 3 and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah on Monday night. Washington Redskins defensive lineman Chris Baker was ejected for the hit, but in explaining why it didn't draw a league fine, Vincent said it was a legal block in the first place. A league spokesman, meanwhile, quickly issued a statement Tuesday morning announcing that Abdullah -- who went to the ground to pray after returning an interception for a touchdown -- should not have been penalized.

According to the NFLRA, however, neither of the officials who made those calls were downgraded in their weekly postgame evaluations by the league. That prompted an obvious question: Why was the league offering implied public criticism that countered its internal judgment? Retired referee Scott Green said in a statement that "it seems there is a disconnect between what the Officiating Department expects from officials and the public statements being made by league executives."

The NFL's response, I thought, was revealing. From Thursday's statement:

"As part of evaluating the performance of our game officials, the officiating supervisors recognize that for an incorrect call on a close judgment play the official may have used appropriate reasoning. On such a call, the official is not downgraded."

Regarding the hit on Foles, the league went as far as to say: "While not a correct call, we understand why it was made."

Officials have long accepted that fans and media members will dissect their decisions, but it's relatively rare for the league to weigh in on the public debate. You might view this exchange as internal posturing, or the NFL crafting a middle ground to extinguish a public flare. Regardless, however, the end result was important to our understanding of officiating in the NFL.

As we've noted many times, officials must apply the NFL's thick and complex rulebook in split-second intervals during live action. Some calls are simply missed, and officials are downgraded accordingly. But in others, the league acknowledges it can't demand that the right call be made. So it goes.

As always, accompanying this post is our weekly look at the frequency of penalty calls among the NFL's 17 officiating crews. You'll see that the range remains substantial; an average game called by Carl Cheffers' crew has had twice as many penalties as one by Clete Blakeman's.