As Percy and I have been trying to explain to you guys since the darn play happened, you are inferring something that is not explicit in the rules. In 2014 a catch was control, two feet, and a move or time to make a move that is the rule that turns a receiver into a runner. Item one is a subsection of the catch rule. That means that, prior to the Dez fiasco, that going to the ground required control to the ground if you were still a receiver. Do you see the difference? You complete the catch process you are a runner, and you don't become a runner under the going to the ground subsection which is why you need to control it through the ground.
To answer your question, and this is coming from 25 plus years officiating multiple sports, that rule books rarely explicitly spell out everything, and for those who don't officiate that leads to confusion. Officials have the rules, camps, clinics, points of emphasis, and evaluations that hone in those rules. The case book is a supplement to the rule book and it is used to fill in those holes, and guide officials to the correct interpretation of the rules. Even then the case book can't illustrate every possible scenario and in many cases for a play to make the case book means somewhere, sometime, an official blew the call under those conditions. Hoofbite correctly pointed out that the casebook play within this thread was the Victor Cruz catch against us in 2013.
In 2014 a football move turned a falling player into a runner, those case plays are clear, and Blandino and Steretore blew it. Ironically the article you shared in an earlier post agrees with almost everything said by Percy, Mr. C, and me throughout this thread and all previous ones. The rule in 2014 was not applied correctly and everything that the NFL has done since was to retroactively make it seem correct. In 2015 they eliminated a football move ending going to the ground, by requiring the receiver to remain upright and become a runner before they go to the ground, that did not exist before 2015 in any fashion. It was not a clarification like Blandino lied about, it was a brand new rule to cover up the mistake that was made in GB. Everything they have done from 2015 until Pereria spoke recently, has been to further propagate the illusion that going to the ground had always trumped the catch process.
Basically what we have is a two or three time a season play happened in a big game and the NFL freaked out and tried to fix a rule that did not need to be fixed, and instead of dealing with it correctly they set in motion a confusing, poorly written, hodge-podge of stupidity that got worse with each passing change. But make no mistake, the spirit and intent of that rule was not to trump the catch process, it was designed to officiate plays where a receiver could not become a runner. Blandino and Steretore misapplied it, Pereria having mentored Blandino, backed it publicly and in 2015 to today was a concerted effort to cover up that mistake in GB. All of the evidence is there to establish that as a fact.
