The NFL’s rulemaking competition’s committee is set to finalize and announce a new definition for the league’s controversial catch rule, according to the Washington Post. 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,” NFL vice president of football operations Troy Vincent told The Post. “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 will mean 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.
So how about the Dez Bryant catch? In a 2014 divisional playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers, Bryant appeared to have caught a pass on fourth down that would have put the Cowboys at the one-yard line. The Packers challenged the completion and the referee overturned the call. Green Bay won the game 26–21. Under the new rule, Vincent says that the Dez Bryant play would have been ruled a catch.
