Alright, let’s talk about that Dez Bryant catch. Or, you know, what some folks still call the “non-catch.” This thing has been bugging me on and off for years, pretty much since it happened. I remember watching it live, and my gut just screamed “catch!” But then the refs overturned it, and the internet exploded. For a long time, I just accepted the ruling, figured the refs knew best. But then, a while back, I got this itch. I really wanted to understand why it wasn’t a catch, according to them. So, I decided to do my own little deep dive.
My Process of Figuring It Out
First thing I did was rewatch the play. I mean, I watched it a LOT. Found every angle I could on YouTube. Slow motion, super slow motion, you name it. And yeah, every time I watched it initially, it looked like he caught the ball, took a couple of steps, and then reached for the end zone. He had control, it seemed pretty clear to me.
But then came the hard part. I had to look up the actual NFL catch rule from back then, around 2014-2015. And man, that’s where my head started to spin. It wasn’t just about grabbing the ball. There was this whole checklist you had to go through. Stuff like:
- Getting control of the ball. Okay, Dez seemed to have that.
- Getting two feet down in bounds. Yep, he did that too.
- Making a “football move” after the catch. This is where it got fuzzy. Like, tucking the ball, turning upfield, or having the ability to perform such an act.
- Maintaining control of the ball throughout the entire process of going to the ground. This, this was the real kicker.
So, I kept watching the replay with those points in mind. Dez definitely controlled it, got his feet down. Did he make a “football move”? He was lunging for the goal line. Some would argue that’s a football move. I kind of leaned that way. But then, as he hit the ground, the ball popped out. It clearly moved and touched the ground. According to the rule at the time, if you were going to the ground to complete the catch, you had to maintain control throughout that process. If the ground caused the ball to come loose before you had clearly established yourself as a runner or made a distinct act common to the game, then it was incomplete.
I spent a good afternoon just mulling over that “process of going to the ground” bit. It felt like a loophole, almost. It was like, did he complete the act of catching before he hit the ground and the ball came out? Or was hitting the ground still part of the act of catching? The refs said it was part of the act of catching, and since the ball came out when he hit the turf, he didn’t maintain control all the way through.
I even tried to find other similar plays from that era to see how they were called. Sometimes it felt consistent, other times not so much. It really seemed to boil down to the officials’ interpretation of whether the player had done enough to “become a runner” before going to ground.
Where I Landed On It
So, after all that digging and rewatching, here’s where I kind of landed. By the letter of the law, the way the NFL rule was written at that exact time, the officials probably made the call that fit the rulebook. It felt bad, it looked like a catch to the naked eye, but that specific phrasing about maintaining control all the way to the ground if you’re falling as part of the catch… that was the gotcha. The ball moved when it hit the ground, and they determined he hadn’t done enough to show he had completed all the elements of a catch before that moment.
It’s no surprise the NFL tweaked the catch rule multiple times after that season, partly because of the uproar from plays like Dez’s. They tried to make it clearer, though some folks would say it’s still a bit messy. If that play happened under today’s rules, it might very well be a catch. That’s the frustrating part, how a rule interpretation can change the course of such a big game.
Anyway, that was my little personal quest to understand the Dez Bryant non-catch. It didn’t change the outcome of the game, obviously, but at least I feel like I get why it was called the way it was, even if my gut still tells me he caught the damn ball. It was a good exercise in seeing how complex these rules can be and how one little phrase can make all the difference.
