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I've only been an official for a few years and wouldn't dream of questioning NFL officials. But this call and the subsequent discussions I've had with other officials in my area have definately called into question what I thought I knew about a catch.
I've had a couple philosophies that have guided my called when dealing with catches in the end zone.
1) the player must maintain possession through the whole catch.
2) if it's not a catch at the 50 yard line then it's not a catch in the end zone.
What I saw on this play was possession, then during the 'second act' extending for the goalline a bobble, then possession again that could not be maintained because the ball was knocked away by the leg of the Colt player. I'm hard pressed to say that a few frames worth of possession is a catch otherwise there are literally thousands of catch, turn to run, hit, ball comes out type situations that would now be catches.
My questions are as follows.
-Did I miss something about the slow motion review of the play?
-Are the two philosophies I mentioned flawed in some way?
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