NFL changes wording of catch rule, makes it more confusing

The NFL has taken an endless amount of heat throughout the past few seasons over what constitutes a catch. So what did the league do? Made the rule more confusing, of course.

The NFL published an updated version of its rule book this week, and it includes some revised wording regarding how officials will determine what is a completed or incomplete pass. Kevin Seifert of ESPN highlighted the revised wording in red.

Keep this passage handy from the 2016 NFL rule book. It's the updated version of the… https://t.co/X1N6ZMpXtK pic.twitter.com/K2HTALwVsh

— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) July 7, 2016

Good luck with that. Basically, what the NFL has done here is try to define the “football move” rule in more detail. Did it accomplish that goal? It certainly doesn’t seem like it.

If anything, you could argue that the new rule allows officials to use their judgement more, which could be a good or bad thing. How are officials going to determine in real time if a receiver has had the ball long enough to be “capable of avoiding or warding off impending contact of an opponent, tucking the ball away, turning up field or taking additional steps?” We have no idea.

What the league really needs to do is give officials the power to use common sense while reviewing a play. One of the best recent examples is the infamous overturned Dez Bryant catch in the playoffs two seasons ago (video here). Everyone could see that Bryant made the catch, controlled the ball and reached for the pylon. The rest shouldn’t matter.

Maybe the new rule is so ridiculously confusing that it will encourage officials to resort to the eye test — if everyone can blatantly see it was a catch, it was a catch. Or, perhaps it will lead to even more ambiguity. We know better than to rule out the latter.

H/T Deadspin