This is a little complicated, so stick with me here.
I think what you guys really hated last year was not the "football move" rule. I think what you really hated was a bizzare interpretation that was put into place last year in the wake of the Troy Polomalu play in the superbowl. I posted several times about this last year, but nobody really ever understood it, and I admit it's complicated.
So, here it is. Last year, officials were given an interpretation that divided the world into two different scenarios. First was when a defender made contact with a receiver simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, with a catch. Second was when the receiver made a catch and was not engaged by the defender for a brief period of time -- like a second or thereabouts.
What the NFL decided last year was that in the first situation -- where contact by the defender was simultaneous or nearly simultaneous -- in order for the ball to be a "catch," the receiver needed to control it "all the way to the ground." However, in the second situation, there was no such rule. Where the receiver caught the ball in the clear and then was engaged by a defender, the rule was that he needed only to make a "football move" to have it be a catch.
The result was that to the average fan who did not know about this distinction it seemed hugely inconsistent. The issue almost always came up on the question whether it was a fumble. There were some plays last year where the receiver clearly caught the ball and was immediately engaged by a defender, and then made not one but several "football moves" with the defender hanging on him, and then had the ball stripped. These were often ruled no catch, because the defender did not keep the ball all the way to the ground. There were then other plays (like Troy Brown's in the SD game) where the receiver (or here the interceptor; same rule) caught the ball in the clear and then had the ball poked away an instant later, and those were called fumbles because a "football move" had been made. Unless you knew the reason that the refs were calling these two plays differently -- making it depend on when the defender engaged the receiver -- you would have no conclusion but that these plays were being called woefully inconsistently. The announcers never got it, even though some refs (mostly Ed Hochuli) painfully explained the rule at length whenever it came up. As a result, you'd have announcers in the first scenario talking about how the receiver had clearly made a "football move" so it should be a fumble, which was just not the issue. And the end result was that everyone at home got convinced there was the big controversy over what constitutes a "football move," and thus the football move concept took a beating.
The bottom line to me is that the new rule change is an overreaction. The real culprit last year was not the football move rule. It was the stupid interpretation that you needed to maintain the ball all the way to the ground when engaged by a defender, even if you had made a "football move" with possession.
I think the football move rule is a good one. I don't think fumbles should be called merely because the receiver had fingertip control and two feet in bounds. If a defender slaps that ball away, it's an incompletion. Prior to last year, there was not much trouble in deciding what constitutes a "football move," except, unfortunately, in the super bowl on one high profile play. It's an easy to apply concept, and it is more natural with what we all, in common sense, think a fumble should be or not be. When the receiver is in the act of catching, and the defender makes a play, it's just good defense. Not until the receiver becomes a "runner" with real possession should it be regarded as a fumble. That's all the football move rule has ever been about, and it's a good one. The "all the way to the ground" interpretation, depending on when the receiver was engaged, was stupid.
Ok, hope that's understandable. This has been something of a pet peeve of mine.
