NewsBot
New Member
- Messages
- 111,281
- Reaction score
- 2,947
You didn’t think about his grasp on the football and if he maintained it long enough to satisfy the rulebook after hauling in a 4th-and-2 heave from quarterback Tony Romo deep down the left side.
And you didn’t think about Bryant’s status as a runner and if he was instead a receiver going to the ground. The officials didn’t either because initially they gave the Cowboys possession on Green Bay’s 1-yard line. In a 26-21 game at the time to determine which team would move on and be one win closer to the Super Bowl, the Cowboys needed only that one yard to take the lead.
Then a 31-yard completion was taken away, and shortly after, Dallas’ season ended.
After Packers head coach Mike McCarthy challenged the play, it was ruled that Bryant didn’t properly keep possession throughout the entire process of going to the ground. The standard fiery Internet rage toward head referee Gene Steratore followed, but sadly that was misguided.
Steratore correctly applied the rule about going to the ground as it was written. The problem and resulting confusion lay with vague language that doubles as the NFL’s version of legalese. Why exactly was Bryant determined to have not established himself as a runner when two feet hit the ground before the rest of his body?
Now more words have been added to the rule, but the confusion remains.
Mike Pereira, the former vice president of NFL officiating, is in New York to get further information on new rules and rulebook tweaks for the 2015 season from current officiating Vice President Dean Blandino. Through a series of tweets Pereira revealed the exact wording of what will now unofficially become known as the Dez Bryant Rule.
Blandino and the NFL evidently tried to clarify the Bryant catch ruling and avoid future instances of rulebook calamity. While that's a noble goal, little was accomplished.
First, here’s a reminder of how the rule read back in January.
As Blandino explained in March when rewriting the rule was first discussed, the baseline for being a runner after the catch—and not a receiver falling to the ground in an attempt to secure the ball—was making a “football move.”
“For years the requirement for a catch was control, both feet and after that the receiver had to make a football act,” Blandino explained, per CBSSports.com’s Will Brinson.
The “football move” language was eliminated in March and replaced with a receiver having to “clearly establish himself as a runner.” And now, as Pereira reported, further lipstick was applied to that pig.
Here’s the full revised rule after an offseason of bending and twisting.
A player is considered to be going to the ground if he does not remain upright long enough to demonstrate that he is clearly a runner. If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball until after his initial contact with the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.
What’s changed exactly? So very little.
The aim and result are still the same. If we were to beam back in time and replay that catch, it still wouldn’t be an actual catch. Bryant would still lose possession for a split second after hitting the ground and then re-clutch the ball. And that would still be enough to overturn the play, even though he took a total of three steps before making contact with the cold Lambeau Field grass.
There is no change of significance, and efforts to accomplish that should have been focused on Bryant’s feet. He was able to leap high into the air, beat an outstretched defender (who had great coverage, it should be noted), rip the ball away and then take two full steps forward.
A third step came as Bryant was falling. And he was falling partly because of his own momentum but also because he was reaching for the end zone. That’s when the ball popped out, though if it touched the ground is still in question.
Essentially, Bryant was punished for trying to score and doing it during a moment when the Cowboys had to either get six points or pretty much see their season end.
By the definition of the rule—both new and old—a perfectly legal recatch has taken place if the ball doesn’t graze grass. That brings us to where we always seem to arrive whenever NFL rulebook intricacies are discussed: subjective grayness.
In an ideal football world the three total steps Bryant took after the catch would deem him to have been “upright long enough,” which has now become the modern definition of “football move.”
Either wording applies to a sport that’s chaotic in nature, with unique situations often arising. The rulebook allows for vagueness and offers a basic foundation that covers most scenarios. But then the humans on the field are asked to make judgement calls. They need to assess the action and then in this case decide to the best of their ability if a player has clearly become a runner, all while staying in the framework of that rulebook language.
There will be zero on-field impact tied to Thursday's slight wording adjustment. Instead the NFL has offered only the illusion of clarity when there was a chance for real change. The league's decision-makers opted to give themselves comfort through optics and ignore an opportunity to ensure another Dez Bryant-like ruling doesn't happen.
Read more Dallas Cowboys news on BleacherReport.com
Continue reading...