Former head of NFL officiating Mike Pereira called the recommended changes to the catch rule “a great step in the right direction” but also called for the removal of replay from the third element of the proposal.
Current senior vice president of officiating, Al Riveron, made public the Competition Committee’s plan for revising the controversial rule governing catches: control of the ball, two feet (or another body part) down and an additional timing stipulation defined as “a football move” such as a third step, reaching the ball forward or the ability to perform such an act.
After much deliberation & input from coaches, players, @NFLLegends, & club executives, the @NFL Competition Committee will recommend the following language simplifying the catch rule at the Annual Meeting next week. pic.twitter.com/hJwH5YYBRK
— Al Riveron (@alriveron) March 21, 2018
The convoluted standard that has incited confusion and debate required that the receiver maintain full possession of the ball after going to the ground and — as often exposed by slow-motion replay — that the ball not shift at all in a player’s hands, which was seen as a lack of control.
Pereira, now a Fox Sports rules analyst, said the third element carries some subjectivity and should be decided by the official on the field.
“I just don’t like replay involved with something that is not a fact. I don’t like replay involved in a judgment,” he told SportTechie, adding: “They can fully eliminate the controversy, to me, if they took replay out of that last part.”
After working as an NFL sideline judge, Pereira received a promotion to supervisor of officiating in 1998 (and subsequently to director and then vice president of officiating), just before replay was reintroduced to the league in 1999.
While the revision to the catch rule that required a player to control the ball “to the ground” was added in 1982, the return of replay — and especially replay’s increasing detail and clarity — is what complicated matters.
“I think all of us that were involved are guilty of this — we took the intent of the rule, which was to correct the obvious mistake, and we basically got so technical that we were changing based on minutiae,” Pereira said.
“Replay, especially with the element of going to the ground, really took it down a road which I think really got out of hand,” he added.
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He’s not alone in that assessment, with former referee Jim Daopoulos, who serves as ESPN’s rules analyst, telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the advanced tech in the league’s central replay center can expose even the tiniest of ball movements, saying, “You can do whatever you want in New York to make it a catch or not make it a catch by slowing it down or not slowing it down. With high-definition TV now, you can slow it down so much that you’re going to see the slightest bobble . . . [d]on’t micromanage the game with bobbles and all this stuff. Let the players decide the game on the field. We have to quit going to replay so much.”
The Competition Committee’s recommendation for the rule revision requires a two-thirds vote of league owners next week. A series of instances in which replay overturned what seemed to be obvious catches — particularly those involving the Lions’ Calvin Johnson back in 2010, the Cowboys’ Dez Bryant in 2014 and the Steelers’ Jesse James in 2017 — “got too technical,” Pereira said. “When you look at a lot of those, the replay rule defies logic.”
During Super Bowl LII last month, a third quarter touchdown catch by Philadelphia Eagles running back Corey Clement drew its own share of scrutiny. The play certainly looked like a catch in real time, but slow-motion replay showed Clement slightly bobble the ball, without getting both feet in bounds afterwards. NBC commentator Chris Collinsworth ranted about the decision to call the play a completion, given the recent precedent of the catch rule. “I give up,” he said of trying to interpret the rule, as broadcast partner Al Michaels added, “We’ve seen that called incomplete majority of times.”
WHAT IS A CATCH?! pic.twitter.com/k0OQ0fTjBh
— UPROXX Sports (@UPROXXSports) February 5, 2018
Now officials, teams and fans are all clamoring for a return to common sense.
“It’s an interesting standard but the 40 guys in a bar, if they think it’s a catch, it ought to be a catch,” Pereira said. “If it smells like, it looks like and it feels like a catch, it ought to be a catch.”