Catch rule changes likely
The NFL’s catch rule would get less complicated if team owners approve recommendations from the powerful competition committee.
One of the first orders of business when the league’s annual meetings begin Monday in Orlando, Fla., will be a proposal by the committee to clarify what is a catch. Commissioner Roger Goodell said during the week of the Super Bowl he would urge simplification of the rules.
“Catch/no catch is at the top of everyone’s minds,” Troy Vincent, the NFL’s football operations chief, said Wednesday before outlining the committee’s recommendations.
The owners will be asked to vote on clarifications that eliminate parts of the rule involving a receiver going to the ground, and that also eliminate negating a catch for slight movement of the ball while it is in the receiver’s possession. No calls in the last few years – not even pass interference – have caused more consternation than overturned catches in key situations, including those by Dez Bryant, Jesse James and Austin Seferian-Jenkins.
Here’s what would constitute a catch if the owners approve the competition committee’s alterations:
❚ Control of the ball. ❚ Getting two feet down.
❚ Performing a football act.
❚ Performing a third step.
The stipulation that slight movement of the ball while the receiver still has control no longer would result in an incompletion.
Draft coverage expands: Every round of the NFL draft will air on network television next month for the first time as Fox will simulcast the NFL Network’s coverage of Days 1 and 2 and ESPN’s coverage of Day 3 will be shown on ABC.
ESPN’s “College GameDay” will air live from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on April 26-27. It is previewing the first two days of the draft as part of the network’s college football-themed coverage of the first round on ESPN2.
The first round of the draft airs in prime time on April 26. Rounds 2 and 3 are held April 27. The draft concludes with Rounds 4 through 7 on April 28.
Forbath stays with Vikings: The Minnesota Vikings have re-signed kicker Kai Forbath to a one-year contract after a strong finish to his 2017 season.
Forbath has missed eight of 53 extra points in 23 games with the Vikings, and he endured some mini-slumps in 2017. But he made a career-best seven field goals from 50-plus yards last year, and he made three of four in the NFC divisional round playoff.