Last month we told you that the NFL competition committee was working to amend—and by that, I mean fix—the catch rule. And today I’m telling you that they have finally decided what that means.
At least according to the Washington Post who reported yesterday that they committee is set to finalize and announce a new definition for the league's controversial catch rule.
The new rule will get rid of provisions pertaining to the slight movement of the football once it hits the receiver's hands and the going-to-the-ground requirement.
"Slight movement of the ball, it looks like we’ll reverse that," says NFL vice president of football operations Troy Vincent. "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.”
Under the new rule, that means that once the receiver has control of the football, any slight movement in the receiver's hands viewed during a replay review would not be an incompletion. If the receiver is in the process of going to the ground, they will have to maintain control of the football while on the turf for the catch to be ruled as complete.
But all that fancy talk aside let me put it to you this way.
The game winning catch by Steeler Jesse James against the Patriots in Week 15 of this season would be a catch now.
Well, it was a catch then too...Juss'sayin!
Source: Washington Post