NFL catch rules are the dumbest in all sports
Let’s make NFL games more fun.
Remember how much fun you had last week watching the guys at the NFL office in New York trying to decide whether Steelers tight end Jesse James had actually caught the ball that it looked like he caught for the winning touchdown?
Let’s build on the brilliance of the NFL’s did-he-catch it rule to not only make it more fun but to remove all doubt that it was a real catch.
Here’s my proposal: After catching the ball, the receiver must hold the ball above his head with both hands and hop on one foot for at least three yards without losing possession. Otherwise it’s incomplete.
Let’s be 100 percent sure that there are no cheap catches or cheap touchdowns. And imagine how much fun it would be to watch the replays to determine if the receiver hopped the required three yards before losing possession.
OK, I’m kidding. Maybe only half kidding, but the NFL’s rules for when a catch is a catch may be the dumbest rule in the history of sports.
The so-called incompletion to James was debated on every TV network and hundreds of talk shows every day last week.
Was it a catch or not?
The fact that James caught the ball is indisputable. A human being can’t make the move that he made toward the goal line without first catching the ball. Why would a human lunge toward the goal line without a ball in his possession?
Twenty-six million people watching the game on television saw the catch. So did almost 70,000 people in the stands at Heinz Field. The officials on the field saw it, too. That’s why they signaled a touchdown. Bill Belichick and every player on the Patriots saw it. But all of those people made the mistake of believing their lying eyes.
Up in New York, when they slowed the video down to three pixels at a time and looked at it from 17 different angles, it was determined that James’ catch had not survived the ground.
How much intelligence does it require to understand the stupidity of that scenario?
Using video replay to “get it right” would be a noble concept if not for the fact that it’s only used to get it right sometimes.
How many penalties could be called after the whistle if replay were used?
How about only having rules that are possible to be enforced without super-slomo? The stupid rule that was probably properly enforced on the non-catch by James could never be enforced in real time. That play will be called a touchdown every time.
You know why?
Because, in the real world it is a touchdown.
The Patriots, who gave up a 69-yard pass play just before allowing James to be wide open near the goal line in the last minute, didn’t deserve to win.
They deserved to lose for blowing a lead in the last minute.
No team deserves to be saved by a stupid rule and the technology that makes it possible.
-Of course, Tom Brady, the greatest athlete in North American history, will get credit for his 51st fourth quarter comeback.
-Speaking of Brady, on Showtime’s Inside the NFL, the Patriots’ radio announcer can be heard saying, “And the greatest quarterback of all time has his 51st fourth quarter comeback win.” That was before the Steelers had scored what looked like the winning touchdown. Interestingly enough, about two minutes later, Inside the NFL panelists Boomer Esiason and Ray Lewis were pointing out how impossible to cover and how wide open Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski was on the game-winning drive and two-point conversion.
There’s not a quarterback in the NFL who wouldn’t have completed those passes and there wouldn’t have been a game-winning drive if Steelers safety Sean Davis had caught the pass that GOAT put right in his hands.
-NFL Networks production of “A Football Life/Swann and Stallworth” should be required viewing for any Steelers fan who believes the current passing combination of Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown is the best in Steelers history.
It has and will probably always have the numbers but the show is a reminder of how much different the game is now.
Bradshaw, at the time of Swann’s induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, says, “My attitude was attack. Go deep. Anybody can go wide. Go deep. Get a play in the huddle…Swann (says) let’s throw a hook. Stallworth says he has ’em on a curl. Fifty yards — throw it deep. Let’s go deep”
Imagine a quarterback in the dink-and-dunk NFL of 2017 trying to sell that approach to his coach.
Swann is seen making a catch on the sideline and falling to the ground. Five seconds later Raiders linebacker Phil Villipiano drives his shoulder into Swann’s back. No flag.
In the 1975 AFC Championship game, Raiders safety George Atkinson gives Swann a forearm to the head and then slams his head on the concrete-like frozen turf at Three Rivers Stadium.
Swann is knocked out cold and taken off on a stretcher. Not sure if there was a penalty and there was no suspension.
Two weeks later Swann was named MVP of Super Bowl X.
The Steelers played the Raiders in the 1976 opener and A Football Life has slow motion footage of Atkinson clubbing Swann in the head with a forearm from behind.
Wide receivers and quarterbacks led much more dangerous lives in those days.
And no matter how many times I see highlights of Swann and Stallworth, I’m always more amazed by Bradshaw’s throws.
They changed the rules before the 1978 season to make it easier for wide receivers and quarterbacks and Bradshaw said, “When they changed the rules, my DNA said fire away.”
All three would be superstars today.
Do yourself a favor. Watch the show.