NFL considers simpler catch rule

The NFL is about to have a new catch rule. The league’s rule-making competition committee is poised to change the controversial rule by eliminating two provisions that were particularly confounding over the years to players, coaches and fans, and by modifying the standard by which catch-or-no-catch rulings are made on instant replay reviews.

“We worked backward,” said Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations. “We looked at plays and said: Do you want that to be a catch? And then we applied that to the rule.”

Vincent said in a phone interview Tuesday that committee members plan to propose getting rid of portions of the rule related to a receiver going to the ground while making a catch and to slight movement of the football while it’s in the receiver’s hands. The committee also intends to raise the bar by which an on-field ruling of a catch could be overturned via replay review, he said.

The competition committee, at the behest of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, is seeking a common-sense approach to what should be a relatively straightforward issue of whether or not a receiver makes a legal catch. But that matter has been anything but simple for the NFL, with a series of debate-fueling non-catch replay rulings in recent seasons adding to the ever-mounting confusion.

The modifications could be finalized Tuesday by the committee and presented to the owners of the 32 teams next week in Orlando, Florida, at the NFL’s annual meeting, according to Vincent.

Rule-change proposals must be approved by at least 24 of the 32 franchises. But the teams generally defer to the competition committee, particularly on complicated wording-of-rules issues like the catch rule. Goodell’s publicly stated desire to see the rule rewritten will virtually guarantee that the competition committee’s recommendations are enacted for next season, some of those connected to the process have said in recent weeks.