What is a catch? It's currently the most confounding question in professional sports. The NFL's desire to fix the rule led to the formation of a committee of coaches and players specifically to try and solve the problem.
Despite the negative attention the rule conjures, the NFL's vice president of officiating, Dean Blandino, told NFL Media's Steve Wyche on Sunday on NFL Network that he doesn't anticipate a major overhaul to the perplexing rule.
"We think that the rule is in a good place right now," Blandino said. "I really feel it's just communicating the rule and educating and showing video examples of what is and what isn't a catch. There's a subjective element to the rule so there's always going to be those plays where we debate that subjective element. That's just part of it. That goes for other calls that are made during the game -- pass interference, offensive holding...
"Maybe there's another tweak that maybe we can make in the rule to make it easier to understand. But I don't anticipate any major changes."
As others have noted, perhaps the biggest "tweak" to the rule is an application of the review standard in which the call on the field, made in real time, is stuck with barring obvious evidence to contrary -- as it was called in the Divisional Round of the playoffs on a catch by Larry Fitzgerald. As opposed to changing the call after seeing a play in slow motion, as happened with Dez Bryant's infamous "non-catch" in the 2014 playoffs.
In addition to the "what is a catch" conundrum, Blandino said the Competition Committee would discuss the possible expansion of instant replay. He also added there would likely be discussions about the possible elimination of cut blocks and chop blocks for player safety reasons.
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