Tag: catch rule

NFL’s bogus ‘What is a catch?’ process cost the Saints a big gain vs. 49ers

The NFL’s bogus “What is a catch?” process cost the Saints a big gain vs. 49ers, and FOX rules analyst Dean Blandino didn’t help clarify that decision:

[sendtonews_embed video_id=”wPyRWXNDvt-2389085-7498″]

Come on, man. Here’s another example of instant replay maybe being the worst thing to happen to the NFL. The New Orleans Saints lost a 30-yard pickup that would have put them in scoring position early against the San Francisco 49ers, with Taysom Hill sending a well-placed ball to rookie standout Chris Olave.

The ball bounced from Olave’s hands after he went to the ground, but the officiating crew signaled a pass completion and fresh set of downs for New Orleans deep in San Francisco territory. But 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan threw a challenge flag, and the play was changed to an incomplete pass after a film review. And the broadcast crew’s explanation didn’t help.

“Yeah, we’re still wondering,” joked FOX Sports rules analyst Dean Blandino when asked what constituted a catch in the NFL. He continued, “This to me is a good overturn. Olave gets control, he gets both feet down, now he has to perform an act common to the game. He has to take another step. That left step with his foot, he almost trips over his own foot. He doesn’t take an addition step. He goes to the ground, he loses the football, he doesn’t complete the process.”

But Olave did take that third step — it’s what sent him to the ground, with his toes striking the turf as the 49ers defender clinging to his leg drug him down from behind. But as Blandino and apparently referee Shawn Hochuli interpreted it, he didn’t make a classic heel-arch-toe sequence before falling down, so that didn’t count as “an act common to the game.” Never mind that he moved his whole leg after taking two steps with the ball in his hands.

Look, this is ridiculous. The NFL has boxed itself into a corner by litigating and relitigating the specifics to defining a catch, and the game is worse off for it. And nobody seems to understand what should actually happen there. This season we’ve seen referees cite rules that were publicly abolished years ago like the “surviving the ground” rule. If nothing else, we’ll toss this incident on top of the pile of evidence that the NFL needs to stop cutting corners and pinching pennies and only employ full-time rules officials, not part-time lawyers and middle school principals.

[vertical-gallery id=118804]

Pass interference review is the new catch rule

How soon we all forget. Only a few years ago NFL fans were plagued by the question of what exactly is a catch. What we thought we saw with our own eyes was was wrong – according to the NFL. It was a national nightmare. No one knew if a catch would …

How soon we all forget. Only a few years ago NFL fans were plagued by the question of what exactly is a catch. What we thought we saw with our own eyes was was wrong — according to the NFL. It was a national nightmare. No one knew if a catch would stand or not. Then the NFL came to its senses and simplified the catch rule. Sure, there are still some weird decisions, but the issue has been fixed for the most part. The league simply couldn’t have that, so now we have the new catch rule. It’s pass interference review.

The pass interference review was a reaction — or overreaction — to the infamously missed pass interference/blown call in the NFC title game between the Rams and the Saints. There were many ideas thrown around that would remediate the issue. The NFL seems to have picked the worst one.

Even though everyone was saying that the pass interference review would come back to only anger fans and confuse coaches, the NFL trudged onward. It was all fine in the beginning. It was fine only because referees — and the folks in New York helping out with reviews — simply refused to overturn missed pass interference calls. The burden of proof had to be so amazingly high that there wasn’t a challenge that could be overturned. If the call was missed on the field, it wasn’t changed on replay. Tough luck. Coaches adjusted and they knew that challenging for pass interference wasn’t a good investment when it came to their challenges and timeouts. There were some obvious missed calls — just google “Ravens Texans missed pass interference” — but that was life.

Then suddenly things changed. Some ticky-tack calls were being overturned — this happened in the Panthers-Saints a few weeks ago — and now we are exactly where we did not want to be. Pass interference reviews are nebulous. They are being reffed to a level where small plays are being overturned while other pass interference is being overlooked. Reviews are being broken down frame by frame and the intent of the rule is being lost. It’s the exact same issues we had with the catch rule a few years ago. Except, this time it’s totally worse because it’s a subjective penalty. Everyone knew — or thought they knew — what a catch was. No one really knows what’s pass interference unless it’s blatantly obvious.

So this is where we sit at Week 14 of one of the most exciting seasons in recent NFL history. We have storylines like Lamar Jackson, the crumbling Patriots dynasty, the rebirth of the Niners, and amazing playoff races in both leagues. We also sit here with the dark cloud of what important game will be decided by a pass interference review. If the league simply kept doing what it was doing early on in the year, it would make sense. They apparently didn’t want to do that. Now, “what’s a catch,” has turned into “what’s the burden of proof for pass interference?”