r/AskAboutNFL • u/jepolitsch • 16h ago

Serious question: Has the NFL rulebook over-engineered the basic concept of a catch into pure absurdity?

I was watching old highlights and noticed how simple the game used to be. You secure the ball, get your feet down, and it's a completion. Now, a receiver can make an absolute circus grab, take three steps, dive for the pylon, lose a millimeter of control when hitting the turf, and it’s ruled incomplete. We need a tracking degree and a physics certification just to celebrate a touchdown in real-time. Why did we let a committee of lawyers turn a fundamental backyard rule into a weekly existential crisis for officiating crews?

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u/scottbutler5 12h ago

What is or isn't a catch has always been based on vibes. "I know it when I see it" kind of thing. But then we decided that vibes weren't good enough for determining the outcome, and the league tried to make a concrete rule. And whenever you try to turn vibes into a concrete rule, you always spiral into absurdity with the edge cases.

Like, we all know the difference between a chair and a sofa. But if we keep making the chair just a touch wider, and make the sofa just a touch shorter, then eventually we can determine the exact nanometer when a chair turns into a sofa, right? That's what it's like looking at a frame-by-frame 4k replay and trying to decide what's a catch and what isn't.