Worst Sports Rules

This is a good change. Expecting catches to involve little to no ball movement after the catch is unrealistic, akin to the whole thing with very briefly coming off the bag on pop-up slides in baseball, creating a clear conflict between the letter of the rule and its spirit. In those instances, best thing to do is to change the rule so they're in alignment.

Yay!

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Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies...

Marginally hilarious that we now have all these huge NFL moments of great historical import that, just a couple of years later, would've gone the other way.

So hard to figure out why NFL ratings are dropping.

That whole surviving the ground thing was actually originally implemented to help the offense, by limiting fumbles. I believe the new change is simply to quell the current outcry, but will still leave plenty of room for controversy. A player dives, appears to catch the ball a split second before he lands hands first, and the ball comes loose. Is that a catch now? I think players are coached according to the rules in place, and need to be constantly aware of them. Just hold onto the damn ball.

Should have just changed it back to what it was before the Bert Emanuel no catch.

"Just hold onto the damn ball" doesn't really argue for either side, since it just shifts the discussion to what "hold onto" means. And the players having to be aware of the rules has no relationship to whether or not a given rule is good or bad.

Sure, there's always going to be controversy, but some rules plainly lead to more counterintuitive or controversial results than others. And this was plainly one of them.

I say hold onto the ball so there's no doubt. There are coaches who bench receivers for trying to stretch the ball across the goal line. Mike Tomlin was on the competition committee that upheld the surviving the ground rule, and then his tight end doesn't know the rule. It really was a simple rule, but more than that it provided a guideline. You will see more controversy than ever this coming year. The only controversy that resulted from before was because of people who couldn't understand the rule. I heard so many people screaming that James crossed the goal line, even though that had zero to do with if it were a catch or not.

No doubt about what? Whether or not it's a "catch." That's the thing being disputed: what should a "catch" be? So saying "just hold onto the ball" or "so there's no doubt" is just sidestepping the argument.

This is conflating two different things. The first, which is what you're talking about, are people who thought it should have been a catch under the rule at the time, because they didn't understand it. The second are people who realize it wasn't (or at least probably wasn't) a catch under the rule, but concluded that it was a poorly conceived rule. The second is what we're talking about here. I don't see any serious dispute about whether it was a catch at the time, only about whether it should have been.

All this other stuff about what players or coaches should know is totally ancillary to that point.

Actually the worst sports rule is the rule that The Patriots have to go to the Super Bowl every year.

I think they'll probably end up rescinding that one soon, too, Tom Brady's snake blood moisturizer and giant rubber band gyration therapy notwithstanding.

I'm not sidestepping anything; I'm just adding some of my thoughts on the matter.


I understand that, but if you only want to speak about whether or not it was a good rule or not, I think it was. Tell me what happens now when a player is parallel to the ground diving for the ball. He gets both hands on it for a split second before he hits the ground, the ball comes loose and it bounces out of the bounds. You think that's a catch? It may look different than the Jesse James play but it's essence is the same. What I do think they could have done is expand the "making a football move" scenario. I don't think you should have to take two steps to make a football move. I think reaching for the goal line or first down marker could be considered making a football move. Instead, they're giving us no defined guideline which is going to result in all kinds of controversy. At least before, we had concrete guidelines, like them or not.

As much as his on field conduct and accomplishments are admirable, he sure seems like a bit of a kook.

Oh yeah, I don't mean you're deliberately avoiding anything, I just mean that so many of these things are just providing different words for what's ultimately the same question: what is a catch, what does it mean to hold onto something, etc.

Can't tell ya' until they actually come out with the text of the rule. We'll see. It's totally possible that, even if the rule had to change, they might come up with something as bad or worse.

The football move tweak you mention sounds like a plausible fix.

I just wanna say I'm very impressed by you saying this.

Yeah, the stuff with the trainer is uncomfortable. I hope he wises up and ditches that guy. Partially just because of the sleaze factor, but also because if they're actually telling players they can reduce concussions with some of this stuff, it could actively hurt people.

5-5 woo hoo. Congratulations Vikings and Bills fans.

I love offsides in Football, if it wasn't there, everyone would plant a player beside the goalkeeper. Wouldn't make much sense. Not to mention the size of the pitch. Football pitches are huge. I dont think any other sport uses a bigger playing surface. But I might be wrong on this one. Defenders cant possibly cover everything.

And not to mention the controversies it generates, perfect for bar arguments.

Hockey had offsides in till the mid 90s. Then they ditched it.

Draws are a good thing, there are days when no team really deserve to win. Just as in life everything is not black and white, isn't it?

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Sounds like they've approved the changes, and the new catch rule is pretty close to what cricket was talking about. They've basically eliminated the bit about maintaining control to the ground, so a catch is now: control, stay in bounds, make a football move. With a third step or a reaching towards the goal line counting as a football move.

We'll see how it is in practice, but it sounds good.

Im glad theyve updated it and we no longer have to worry among other things that a little tiny wobble of the ball while falling means an incomplete pass. Im not a huge fan of the "football move" concept though. This rule change will likely lead to a few more fumbles after a catch no doubt but I'll take that ten times out of ten over the nonsensical silliness they had before.