Another week, another ridiculous question about what exactly is a catch
You know, passing a football seems like a pretty simple proposition. Quarterback throws ball, receiver either hangs onto ball or he doesn’t. But this being the NFL, there’s no easy element of the game that can’t be hopelessly, ridiculously overcomplicated with rules, analysis, preconditions, caveats, codicils, and, of course, “judgment calls.”
With less than a minute left in the first half of Sunday’s Lions-Bears game, Detroit’s Matthew Stafford hit Golden Tate as he was headed into the end zone, and almost immediately, the Chicago Bears pounced. The ball popped up in the air and appeared to end in an interception for Chicago.
Multiple officials signaled “touchback,” but the ruling went for an official review because of a turnover. Tate screamed that he had crossed the plane and that the play should have been a touchdown, but receivers always claim they’re the victims. Surely this was an interception, right? Surely this was just a routine confirmation of the ruling on the field, right?
Wrong. The call came down from the replay booth: REVERSED. TOUCHDOWN. Head referee Walt Coleman, uncharacteristically taciturn for a referee on TV these days, declared simply that the rule was overturned because Tate “took three steps and crossed the plane.” In slow motion, it sure appeared Tate got a step and a half, at best, before the ball was ripped from his hands.
Three points here. First, the NFL’s catch rules have sailed straight past strange and deep into the realm of the absurd. Instant replay has not helped the situation; indeed, being able to slow the play down to geologic speed and review the play with microscopic intensity serves only to provide evidence for whichever point of view the viewer wishes to endorse. The tip of the ball moved! The receiver realigned his fingers! The leather disturbed the edge of a grass blade! It’s unnecessary overcomplication.
Second: This is a complete reversal of last week’s touchdown-turned-incompletion by Atlanta’s Devonta Freeman. NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino, in attempting to explain the call, told NFL Media that Tate “had demonstrated possession. He had become a runner, and he had crossed the plane of the goal line.” And yet, that’s exactly what Freeman did last week, but his catch was ruled an incompletion because he lost the ball after crossing the goal line. You make the call:
Third: The Lions deserved this one, after getting burned multiple times by strange NFL rulings, most recently an illegal bat that could have gotten Detroit a win over Seattle.
NFL fans will accept any kind of ridiculous rule as long as it’s applied uniformly. At the moment, the catch rule is all over the map. The NFL needs to standardize the language, the interpretation, and the favoritism (i.e. “when in doubt, it’s a catch,” or what-have-you), and then make sure all its refs know the guidelines. At the moment, the NFL is bobbling this rule, and that never ends well. Or does it…?
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter.
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