Shaun King threw a dart that got on me quick coming out of my break, and the only thing I could do was leave my feet, grab the ball with two hands and trap it against my chest. I ran a simple whip route, where I went about seven yards down and across the field before turning back toward the sideline. I remember it being 2nd-and-16 or something like that. 'There was about a minute left on the clock. 'It was late in the game,' Emanuel told Bleacher Report.

It also put the Buccaneers into desperation mode, and it's on that final Tampa drive where Emanuel found himself on a collision course with history. Tampa actually held a 6-5 lead (yes, 6-5.against the Greatest Show on Turf) in the fourth quarter before a Ricky Proehl touchdown put the Rams ahead. No, it was Emanuel's grab (that wasn't) in the 1999 NFC title game where the cacophony about catches began. Nor was it Dez Bryant's non-catch in the 2014 playoffs that had the highest stakes. If there's a former player whose opinions should carry weight where controversial catches are concerned, it's Bert Emanuel's.Īfter all, it wasn't Calvin Johnson's grab in 2010 that started the controversy about what is and is not a catch. However, at least one former wide receiver believes the catch rule has evolved to the point that it's 'very accurate.' It's in enforcement and interpretation where the league badly needs to catch up, so to speak.

'I've heard so many different rules that it is hard to define it myself,' he said, per Kahler. Seattle's Doug Baldwin is similarly nonplussed. As Andrew Hawkins of the Cleveland Browns told Kalyn Kahler of The MMQB, 'I am just as lost as any fan or any player.' The young men playing it are just as lost.

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