Here’s how the NFL will define a catch next year (hopefully)

I hesitate to be too quick to rubberstamp the announcement made by NFL director of officiating Al Riveron, but I would say it’s OK to be optimistic things will be better next season.

If the NFL competition committee recommendation is accepted, figuring out when a catch has occurred should be much easier.

If you see a player obtain possession of the ball with two feet (or another body part) on the ground and make a football move, you will have seen a catch.

How is that last part defined?

A “football move” can include a third step, reaching or extending for the line to gain (or goal line presumably) or the ability to perform such an act.

Absent is language about players "surviving the ground," which is an area from which much of the confusion has come in recent years because for some reason rulesmakers thought the process should be different if a player is going to the ground than if he was not.

A controversial non-catch by Steelers tight end Jesse James was among plays included in a video Riveron tweeted as an example of plays being reviewed as changes to the rules are considered.

James brought the ball in with two feet down but lost it as he turned to try to stretch across the goal line. It was initially ruled a touchdown but overturned upon review because James had not maintained control of the ball after hitting the ground.

This play, in a crucial late-season game between the Steelers and Patriots, was one of several high-profile examples of the current rules making sense to few people outside the league offices because extending the ball seems like “a football play,” but it was not being ruled as such.

That is set to change.

The same ruling on a similar play cost Tyler Eifert a touchdown for the Bengals in a game at Baltimore in 2015.

READ MORE: 5 ways the NFL could better itself and the game