[dok]

Yeah, the catch rule is not as bad as it is made out to be. There are other ways they could write the rule that would make a lot of the current debates go away... but if you make it easier to secure a catch, you almost inevitably create more fumbles that would have been incomplete passes. There's a bunch of potential "did he establish possession and get stripped, or was it incomplete" debates that currently don't happen.

The more interesting thing about the Ertz play, to me: Ertz never should have tried to score! It was 3rd down and he was past the sticks, so if you have any fear of losing the ball and having the ruling go the other way, it's a bad risk.

But even if Ertz was certain he would get the TD, it's a clock management error. Scoring a TD gives NE the ball back with 2:21 and two time outs - as Michaels said, may as well be an eternity. Catch the ball at the 1 and you either get to the 2-minute or make NE burn a time out. NE probably lets you score on the next play, although you can kneel again at the 6 inch line if you're feeling particularly cheeky. The point is, you give them less time.

As it turned out, the Eagles managed to stop a New England drive short for just the second time in the entire game, so it worked out. But at the time, I think most of us thought that they had left NE with too much time.