Did the NFL finally fix the catch rule? Why the ‘eye test’ won out
Of all the unusual moments in NFL officiating this season, from shifting interpretations of new rules to the immediate firing of an underperforming down judge to an all-star grouping of officials, perhaps the most extraordinary outcome of all was the lack of a single significant reception being overturned because of a once-illogical catch rule.
Think about it. When was the last time you heard the terms “process of the catch” or “going to the ground?” How often this season have you watched replays to judge whether a slight movement of the ball would reverse what appeared in real time to be an obvious catch?
The NFL faces another full agenda of officiating woes this offseason, but as the playoffs approach, there is little reason to worry about the catch rule marring an important game.
“When you look at it from a spectator standpoint, it’s pretty simple,” said Jim Daopoulos, a former NFL officiating supervisor. “People want to see catches. They don’t want to see incompletions. Players these days make such tremendous catches. The NFL shouldn’t be in the business of taking away these catches because of what fans see as a technicality. What are our eyes telling us? That’s what we want to see called. I have to say the NFL has done a good job of that this year.”
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The league made two changes in addressing a rule that generated great ridicule over the previous decade, largely for overturned touchdown receptions by the Detroit Lions‘ Calvin Johnson (2010), the Dallas Cowboys‘ Dez Bryant (2014) and the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ Jesse James (2017).
The first step was to tweak the definition of a catch, largely by removing the requirement to retain control after going to the ground. A catch this season has been defined as controlling the ball in bounds, with enough time to make a football move such as a third step. It is still a catch even if the ball trickles out as a player goes to the ground.
The second step was less visible but arguably had more impact. The league added phrasing to its case book that reads: “[I]f the ball moves within control of the receiver, he is deemed not to have lost control of the ball and it is a completed pass.”
That shift was aimed at reducing the spike in replay reversals on plays where the ball moved slightly and then didn’t stop until the player was out of bounds. The most notable example was a touchdown catch by then-Buffalo Bills receiver Kelvin Benjamin, reversed to an incompletion because of minor ball movement.
Video explanation from @NFL SVP of Officiating Al Riveron on the reversal in 2nd quarter of #BUFvsNE pic.twitter.com/2XzCLEINlE
In 2018, total reviews are down 23 percent and reversals are down 13 percent compared to last season. (The league set a record with 195 total reversals in 2017.)
“I thought that was the biggest change of all,” said retired NFL referee Terry McAulay, now a rules analyst for NBC Sports. “It was a clear message from the competition committee to stop the microscopic analysis, the Kelvin Benjamin play in particular. No one wanted it to be interpreted to that level. And I think it also told the [replay] people in New York, ‘Unless it’s obvious, don’t change it.’ We’ve seen less of those called for sure.
“The going to the ground part, I don’t know about that. You had one play a year, two plays a year, that it affected. I don’t know that it was as much of a crisis as a lot of people let on. But what was clear in my mind was that the overly technical replay analysis of, ‘Did he have control or not’ was what led to the frustration.”
Unintended consequences have either failed to materialize or simply been accepted by weary fans and observers. There has been little to no debate about the definition of a “football move,” as subjective as it is. And while eliminating the “going to the ground” requirement created the possibility of more fumbles, they have occurred at almost the exact same rate this season (1.254 per team per game ) as 2017 (1.257).
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If there has been any negative consequence, McAulay said, it has been the “cheapening” of an NFL catch. There have been a handful of receptions, most notably by the Atlanta Falcons‘ Julio Jones in Week 14 against the Green Bay Packers, when both on-field and replay officials might have taken the interpretation too far.
In that Week 14 play, Jones put two hands on a 28-yard pass from Matt Ryan and kept one hand on it as he fell the ground. The ball shifted throughout his fall and Packers cornerback Jaire Alexander pulled it away as Jones landed on the ground. Packers interim coach Joe Philbin challenged the call, but it was upheld in replay. Back in Week 5, Philadelphia Eagles running back Wendell Smallwood was also credited with a 12-yard touchdown catch against the Minnesota Vikings even after he lost the ball while falling the ground. Both Smallwood and Jones benefited from a generous interpretation of the ability to do a football move.
“I do think they went too far,” McAulay said. “We’ve seen a number of cases, of either a reversal to a catch, or letting a catch stand that just shouldn’t be. But people want to see catches and nobody ever seems to get frustrated about letting a catch stand that really shouldn’t be. To me, it’s just in the big picture of, ‘Come on, we don’t really want that to be a catch, do we?’ It’s just cheap. But it’s just not something people get outraged over.”
If nothing else, the NFL has traded a highly contentious if rare controversy for one that is equally rare but far less vexing.
“I guess I haven’t seen too much there that’s bothered me,” Daopoulos said. “The big thing in the league has always been that we don’t want players and teams getting cheap things. We don’t want cheap catches. We don’t want cheap touchdowns. We want teams to earn it. It seems to me like they’ve gotten more into that situation now.”
So can the NFL declare victory here? Are catch controversies permanently vanquished? McAulay, for one, wonders whether fans would remain muted if a “cheap” catch decides a really important game in the same way the Johnson, Bryant and James reversals did.
“I think it’ll stay this way until one really matters,” he said. “What if it happens on a play in the Super Bowl, or in a championship game, or where people say, ‘How did we get to this point?’ It may never happen. Maybe it’s just not something that people really will get outraged over.”
It might have come years too late, and after way too much hand-wringing, but the NFL has accomplished two significant achievements here: It minimized the frame-by-frame debate and paved a previously elusive path to support the “eye test.” And it has been an unquestionably good outcome, even amid the annual chaos around rules and officiating.