NFL planning two huge changes to controversial catch rule
The controversial “survive the ground” catch rule could be a thing of the past if the NFL owners vote to approve the expected recommendations by the league’s competition committee.
The committee’s changes to the catch rule were expected to be finalized Tuesday, Troy Vincent, the league’s executive vice president of football operations, told The Washington Post.
Once the modifications are finalized by the committee, the owners will vote on them at next week’s owners meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Vincent told The Post that the big change relates to the “survive the ground” rule, which says the ball has to stay secured by the player when he hits the ground to be considered a catch.
The new rule, if approved, eliminates that provision. The receiver must only have control of the football, Vincent told The Post. Any slight movement of the ball in the receiver’s hands would not result in an incompletion.
So that means the Jesse James play in the Steelers game against the Patriots last season would be a catch.
That means the Dez Bryant incompletion against the Packers in the 2014 playoffs would be a catch.
The other part of that change relates to “slight movement of the ball” in the receiver’s hands.
We saw this in the Super Bowl with the touchdown catch by Philadelphia’s Corey Clement. The ball moved slightly in Clements’ hands at the end of the catch, and some thought the touchdown should have been overturned because it didn’t constitute possession under current NFL rules.
With the proposed rule changes, slight movements of the ball like this won’t result in an incomplete pass.
Of course, this is certain to open up a debate on what constitutes a “slight movement” of the ball.
Vincent, however, claims it won’t, saying the NFL will go back to the old standard of only overturning calls when it’s a no-brainer.
“We worked backward,” Vincent told The Post. “We looked at plays and said: Do you want that to be a catch? And then we applied that to the rule.”
“Slight movement of the ball, it looks like we’ll reverse that. Going to the ground, it looks like that’s going to be eliminated. And we’ll go back to the old replay standard of reverse the call on the field only when it’s indisputable,” he added.
The NFL is about to have a new catch rule. Troy Vincent says in interview the competition committee plans to eliminate the going-to-the-ground and slight-movement-of-the-football restrictions and change the replay standard for reviewing catches… https://t.co/9TdWuE87ai
— MarkMaske (@MarkMaske) March 20, 2018
The official wording of the new rule with the changes has not been released yet.
Once the wording comes out, it could spark additional debate as people try to interpret it.
Given that Commissioner Roger Goodell has come out in support of fixing the league’s catch rule, it will be surprising if these changes aren’t approved.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
