FORWARD THINKING
NFL releases proposed wording of ‘groundless’ new catch rule
The NFL on Wednesday revealed proposed new language for a reduced, clearer and hopefully far less controversial catch rule.
The wording is so succinct, here it is in its entirety:
1. Control.
2. Two feet down, or another body part.
3. A football move such as:
■ a third step;
■ reaching/extending for the line to gain;
■ or the ability to perform such an act.”
That’s it. No more “surviving the ground.”
If 75% of owners approve the change next week at the league’s annual meeting in Orlando, that’s your new catch rule.
If enforced retroactively, this wording would have made Dez Bryant’s acrobatic catch for Dallas near the end of the 2014 NFC divisional playoff game at Green Bay a catch — because he got a third step down before lunging and fumbling at the cusp of the Packers’ goal line. But as the rule worked then, the play ruled a catch on the field was overturned on review.
Also, the overturned touchdown catch this past December by Pittsburgh tight end Jesse James vs. New England would have stood, because on his lunge for the goal line with a knee down, he punctured the plane of the end zone with the ball, in firm grasp, before going to the ground and fumbling.
“Surviving the ground” or “completing the catch to the ground” are mere summary descriptions of the wordy qualifying clause that has made the NFL’s catch rule so controversial, and so perplexing, this century. That is, it isn’t enough for a receiver to secure firm possession of the ball with two feet (or another body part) down on the ground; rather, pass catchers furthermore are required to maintain firm possession if they should fall to the ground during the process of making the catch.
If the ball pops out at any point — even yards out of bounds during a protracted stumble to the ground, or if the player ever loses tight grip on the ball — it’s no catch.
This requirement has compelled fans, players, coaches and even commissioner Roger Goodell to say in exasperation by this past season’s end that they no longer know anymore what the hell constitutes a catch. Right?
Worst of all, the catch rule often has proved counterintuitive. What looks for all the world like a catch too often isn’t, after this defective rule is properly applied, tortuously and tortuously on endless, fun-chewing, super slo-mo replays off-site at the NFL’s central-replay command centre in New York.
At Goodell’s urging this offseason, the competition committee — which acts in a conservative bent as the league’s keeper and conscience on playing rules — finally stopped defending surviving-the-ground at all costs, and took a serious look at how to rework the catch rule without it. They did so, properly, by going backward: That is, first determining what plays should be ruled catches, then writing a rule that makes them catches.
Agreement was reached on this key philosophical point of discarding “surviving the ground” at the Scouting Combine early this month in Indianapolis. Postmedia learned then that not only the competition committee members, but representative coaches, game officials and players all unanimously agreed with the new-rule concept.
The question was, how to write it? The danger was that near instantaneous catches-- then-fumbles after hard hits would turn too many of what to now have been incompletions into fumbles. And in many cases, cheap fumble-return touchdowns. Somehow wording had to be added to put a delaying time element in, to keep those cheap catches and cheap fumbles out.
The NFL’s senior VP of officiating, Al Riveron, on Wednesday announced via Twitter that “after much deliberation & input from coaches, players, @NFLLegends & club executives,” the competition committee had settled on the wording in boldface at the top of this column for the new rule.
There’s a lot more you should know about the new “third step” proviso, should owners pass the deconstructed rule. I’ll write more about that before the annual meeting kicks off in earnest on Monday.