Sports shorts NFL catch rule to be debated

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, Florida, 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.

“We were at the point as far as players and particularly coaches who asked, `Why is that not a catch?”’ Vincent said. “We talked to fans, coaches and players and we asked the groups, `Would you like this to be a catch?’ It was 100 percent yes.

“Then we began writing rules that actually apply to making these situations catches.”

Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman will coach a team in the BIG3 this season.

Lieberman, a former basketball star who has coached in the NBA, WNBA and NBA Development League, will lead the Power team, the league announced Wednesday. She replaces Clyde Drexler, who recently accepted a job as commissioner of the 3-on-3 league of former NBA players.

“Nancy is one of the sharpest basketball minds and also one of the most competitive,” Drexler said. “Her experience and basketball acumen will stand out in the BIG3, which is filled with star players and coaches.”

Lieberman was a three-time All-American at Old Dominion and two-time U.S. Olympian. She was a head coach in the WNBA and the Dallas Mavericks’ minor league affiliate, plus an assistant for the Sacramento Kings.