“It’s about as clear as mud right now,” John Harbaugh said on Monday in reference to the NFL’s catch rule.
Isaiah Likely appeared to pull in a go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter against Pittsburgh on Sunday, only for it to be overturned after the tight end “failed to complete the process of the catch.”
By the NFL rulebook, the play was correctly called an incomplete pass. The specific place to find why it was ruled this way is Rule 8, Section 1, Article 3 of the NFL Rulebook. The subsections that describe the process of the catch are as follows:
(a): secures control of the ball in his hands or arms prior to the ball touching the ground
Likely clearly secures the ball, and the ball touching the ground was never the issue here.