Maybe King, in classic tongue and cheek style, went a little too far by suggesting pulling out the stopwatch to determine what a catch is, but the principle is clearly correct. In its simplest form a catch is holding the ball with two feet, or the equivalent (a knee), in bounds and on the ground. The time sort of depends on the nature of the play but in most sports holding a ball for about a second is considred possession, so that is a good rule of thumb.

If you make the catch in the air you also need to maintain possession at least until you hit the ground so as to avoid the possibility of an anomolous and unfair result. If a receiver catches the ball in the air, comes down, knee touches the ground, but loses possession when his arms hit, that cannot be a catch even though the receiver had possession with a knee on the ground since then the jarring loose of the ball would have to be a fumble assuming the receiver has not been hit. That is an unfair result to the offense and would be a disincentive for receivers to try to make spectacular catches.

But this is an exception to the general rule that a catch is possesstion with two feet on the ground. Because it is an exception it should be narrowly drawn. it should not apply to the out of bounds situation where a catch is nullified by a receiver hitting the ground out of bounds and having the ball come loose, since that cannot be a fumble once a player is out of bounds. Once a play is out of bounds it's over and nothing that happens there should count.

In sum, a catch is possession while on the ground inbounds. The only exception is that when a catch is made in the air and the receiver comes down inbounds he has to maintain possession through hititng the ground, if not it is an incomplete pass, not a catch and a fumble. I think most football fans could follow that easily. Whether this is the rule now I have no idea but anything that deviates from these principles is when fans are left scratching their heads.

I also vote for eliminating the force out rule. If you don't come down inbounds you don't deserve the catch.

I concur in the comments ridiculing the measurement of first downs. Has anyone noticed that on almost every play they seem to give the offense at least an extra foot in spotting the ball, sometimes an extra yard? The error there almost never goes in the defense's favor.

The issue is whether the ball goes out of bounds in the endzone. If it does then possession goes to the other team. I don't see how it could really work any other way.

And yeah, comparison to other sports is pretty ridiculous unless we start allowing the third baseman to take the legs out from under a runner coming home. Football is a tough sport; you can take a guy's head off and at most it costs 15 yards.

The forceout just isn't a big deal one way or the other. It doesn't happen very often. There is no forceout rule in college and I haven't seen any major repercussions. All other things being equal, the objective criteria of no forceout is better than the subjective criteria of having it, so it should be gone.

Well Joe:

I guess the answer is not as simple as we would like it to be. The first answer is that that's the way the rule has always been, but I'll give you that that's not a convincing reason. the second reason is that a fumble out of bounds in the endzone is treated the same as a fumble going through the back of the endzone. That makes some sense I think. The last reason I can think of is that you want to penalize the fumbler and reward the defense for forcing a fumble under those dire circumstances. To just give the offense the ball back at the spot of the fumble seems not to sufficiently reward the defense for a good play.

As with most football rules this one seems to be a bit arbitrary, but I think it's the right rule for the situation.

Not that I think comparison to other sports is really relevant but isn't it ironic that in basketball the team that forces the ball out loses the ball but in football they keep the ball, unless the ball goes through the endzone of course.

Joe: I don't agree with anything you've said about football, but when it comes to soccer you are right on the money

Maybe we can find some common ground: do you like the Giants by any chance? If so, all sins are forgiven.