In case you forgot, Dez Bryant made the most famous non-catch in years in this year's NFC playoffs. The Cowboys were facing the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau field, and late in the fourth quarter, Bryant rose high in the air on a fourth down play, hauled in a Tony Romo pass, made a clear football move, and was tackled just shy of the goal line. The ball grazed the ground by the slimmest of margins as Bryant did, and the pass was overturned, ending Dallas's hopes of winning the contest.
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The Internet and sports media erupted in the days following the event, and the NFL has now decided to tweak the rule that was invoked on the play. According to Yahoo! Sports, the new rule reads that a receiver must "clearly establish himself as a runner" in order for a catch to stand.
But just like the old "football move" debate, people will now wonder what constitutes "clearly" becoming a runner. After all, on the Dez Bryant play, the receiver took three steps before getting tackled and having the ball hit the ground. If taking three steps is not becoming a runner, then what is?
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And what about players heading for the sideline? When a receiver catches a pass and drags both feet, did he "clearly" become a runner? It would be hard to argue that he did, seeing as how he took zero steps.
The moral of the story is that the NFL has once again muddied the waters on what is already a difficult thing to get right at times, and by adding further debatable language to the rulebook, they make it harder to make the obviously correct call according to common sense because it may not be technically correct according to the letter of the law.
In an interview afterward, NFL VP of Officiating Dean Blandino even admitted that the language is "still subjective," which means that NFL fans can once again look forward to a botched catch/no-catch ruling costing a team a game in 2015. All anybody can hope for is that it doesn't happen in the playoffs this time.
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