Mike Florio ,
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The previously settled catch rule has once again descended into full uncertainty and borderline madness, after the league office overturned Sunday’s ruling on the field that Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely completed the process of scoring what should have been a fourth-quarter, go-ahead touchdown.
On Monday night, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford — a constant presence in the NFL since 2009 — commented on the various shifts and changes to the catch rule, while also lamenting the periodic absence of common sense.
“Since I’ve been in for 17 years now, I feel like the rules changed every third or fourth year,” Stafford said on the SiriusXM Let’s Go! podcast. “You look at the Ravens game against the Steelers and Isaiah Likely’s play and at the end of the game and is it a touchdown? Is it not? Sure felt like one. Sure looked like one in my eyes .”
Stafford expressed sympathy for the officials, who are required to see things in real time and make quick decisions.
“I’m sure they’re getting help from New York,” Stafford acknowledged.
But here’s the point. As to the two controversial (and irreconcilable) catch/no-catch decisions from Steelers-Ravens, New York overturned seemingly correct rulings made by the on-field officials. “Clear and obvious” has quietly and systematically taken a back seat to someone (good luck figuring out who it is) replacing their assessment via replay review for the snap judgment of the officials, without giving those decisions the broad deference that the rules require .
Put simply, the league office has gone rogue. It’s misapplying the replay standard. And, for whatever reason, it’s ignoring key elements of the catch rule. As to Likely, the review process disregarded the multiple ways he could have satisfied the process by performing an act common to the game and treated the absence of a third step as dispositive. As to the Aaron Rodgers non-catch, the review process didn’t consider the requirement that a player going to the ground must keep possession until he lands.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow as a player because sometimes it may not say it in the rule book or exactly show you, but man, you know it as a player,” Stafford said. “Hey, I caught that ball, or I didn’t catch that ball. Or this was a fumble or it wasn’t. And to have that overturned and cost your team possibly a chance at the playoffs or whatever it is. . . . I wish sometimes common sense would override the rule a little bit.”
We’d settle for the rules being applied as written. As written, the rules codify common sense. As interpreted by the replay process on Sunday, the league office proved the age-old maxim that common sense ain’t.
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