Buy Saints TicketsThis wasn’t a catch. Lol pic.twitter.com/V54RzASW8G
— Boot Krewe Media (@BootKreweMedia) November 27, 2022
Come on, man. Here’s another example of instant replay maybe being the worst thing to happen to the NFL. The New Orleans Saints lost a 30-yard pickup that would have put them in scoring position early against the San Francisco 49ers, with Taysom Hill sending a well-placed ball to rookie standout Chris Olave.
The ball bounced from Olave’s hands after he went to the ground, but the officiating crew signaled a pass completion and fresh set of downs for New Orleans deep in San Francisco territory. But 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan threw a challenge flag, and the play was changed to an incomplete pass after a film review. And the broadcast crew’s explanation didn’t help.
“Yeah, we’re still wondering,” joked FOX Sports rules analyst Dean Blandino when asked what constituted a catch in the NFL. He continued, “This to me is a good overturn. Olave gets control, he gets both feet down, now he has to perform an act common to the game. He has to take another step. That left step with his foot, he almost trips over his own foot. He doesn’t take an addition step. He goes to the ground, he loses the football, he doesn’t complete the process.”
But Olave did take that third step — it’s what sent him to the ground, with his toes striking the turf as the 49ers defender clinging to his leg drug him down from behind. But as Blandino and apparently referee Shawn Hochuli interpreted it, he didn’t make a classic heel-arch-toe sequence before falling down, so that didn’t count as “an act common to the game.” Never mind that he moved his whole leg after taking two steps with the ball in his hands.
Look, this is ridiculous. The NFL has boxed itself into a corner by litigating and relitigating the specifics to defining a catch, and the game is worse off for it. And nobody seems to understand what should actually happen there. This season we’ve seen referees cite rules that were publicly abolished years ago like the “surviving the ground” rule. If nothing else, we’ll toss this incident on top of the pile of evidence that the NFL needs to stop cutting corners and pinching pennies and only employ full-time rules officials, not part-time lawyers and middle school principals.
