INDIANAPOLIS – What the hell is a catch anymore?
As the NFL games move along, we still have major gray area in answering that question.
The Colts were victims of that on Sunday, in a key play leading to a 24-10 loss to the Ravens.
With 11:05 to go in the third quarter, Philip Rivers threw a ball that he later admitted was a ‘poor throw’ that appeared to be an incompletion after Marcus Peters couldn’t corral the attempted pass that intended wideout Marcus Johnson knocked away.
But Ravens head coach John Harbaugh saw something that led to him challenging the incomplete pass ruling.
After a lengthy review, it was deemed that Peters did indeed make the interception, and him losing the ball was called a fumble (with the Ravens recovering).
NFL’s Senior VP of Officiating Al Riveron explained the ruling.
“After review, we have clear and obvious visual evidence where the defender controls the football, takes three steps, fumbles the ball and then is ultimately recovered by the defense,” Riveron explained in a video that the NFL’s officiating crew shared on social media. “Therefore, the ruling on the field was changed to an interception and the defense keeps the ball first and 10.”
While it was pretty clear that Peters took that key third step with the ball in his grasp, determining if he had full control was not as easy.
And overturning it, which means ‘clear and obvious’ evidence is needed, had Rivers about as vocal as you’ll hear him after the loss.
“It’s gotten so really jacked up about how the catch rule is,” Rivers said. “Nobody that’s played any amount of football or been around the game watched that and thought it was a catch, including the guy that dropped it. But you can slow it down to milliseconds and you can just make it a technicality about three feet touched the ground, even though somebody that’s sitting back, watching, probably hasn’t thrown a football in his life gets to call it.”
It was easily the most critical Rivers has been in a media session this year.
After answering a few more questions, Rivers decided to end his presser by softening his stance, just slightly.
“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying that about a guy never having thrown a football,” Rivers began. “They called it an interception, it’s an interception. Bottom line, I shouldn’t have underthrown it.”
Frank Reich added this on what he received from the on-field officiating crew.
“First, the explanation was that they were counting his steps and that he had possession of the ball secured and he took whatever amount of steps he needed to take for that to count as a catch was what I was told,” the head coach said.
The interception proved especially costly when the Ravens turned that into a touchdown.
In beating the Colts 24-10, the Ravens outscored the Colts 14-0 in points off turnovers.
