PHOENIX — In the middle of his 43-minute verbal stiff arm of the media Tuesday during the annual NFL coaches breakfast, Bill Belichick briefly relented to detail a recent meeting at the league’s annual, ongoing summit.

According to Belichick, Saints coach Sean Payton and Steelers coach Mike Tomlin gave presentations to their fellow head coaches Monday on the challenges and intricacies of the replay system. Both, he said, impressed. Replay was at the core of this long-awaited conference held to propose rule changes.

Two months earlier, Payton and the Saints suffered from an infamous pass interference non-call in the NFC title game that may have cost them a shot at the Super Bowl.

“Sean and Mike did a great job of presenting different aspects of replay and the officials’ duties and so forth. It’s really an honor to be in that room with all those great coaches," Belichick said. "There are a lot of great observations and ideas put out there to make the game better. I think Mike and Sean did an excellent job of making us all aware of what some of the considerations were. It’s complicated.”

And then it was back to expressionless business.

Hours later, Payton emerged from the league’s final meeting beaming. He continued to beam as he took questions from reporters about how the coaches had voted unanimously to add pass interference to the list of plays that are reviewable via challenge or official-initiated replay, both calls and non-calls.

As he Payton wound down, he unknowingly returned the favor to Belichick. He praised the league’s longest-tenured head coach — who is also a longtime proponent of expanding replay — for capturing the room and shaping the conversation. Yes, Payton said, Belichick played a critical role in passing the new rule.

“Absolutely. When coach talks and grabs the mic, all of us are paying attention because you’re not only paying attention to a Hall of Fame coach, but you’re paying attention to history," Payton said. "Someone who’s able to reference some things that we haven’t gone through.”

NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport explained in further detail Wednesday how Belichick unified the coaches at a critical point in their debate for how to change replay.

From Rapoport: "It really goes back to, as far as my understanding, is the coaches were in a room a couple days back. There was a lot of frustration, there was some yelling, it was very heated. And the plan was to break for lunch. So they made an announcement, 'We’ve got lunch coming up, let’s get you guys out of here, the GMs are gonna come in, we’re gonna take the coach picture.

"And Bill Belichick stood up and said, ‘Look, I know the picture’s important, but we need to get this figured out. This is important.’ They stopped lunch. They brought in boxed lunches so no one left the room. It took two more hours and the coaches came out united.

"And at that point, it seemed the owners said, ‘OK, there’s enough momentum we have to do something.’”