With High Priest Blandino proclaiming that the current catch “rule” in place in the NFL will most likely not be revised, it looks like it’s up to the Commentist Party to decide. With scant action going on in the league (wait the Combine is going on?) I miss debating obvious things with obsucre logic. So, is this a Catch?

If we evaluate the replay, we can see several things:

1. Our receiver begins the play leaning out of bounds with his hands touching the water. How many pages the NFL devotes to underwater areas as to how it relates to being in bounds is far too lengthy a discussion to be had here, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it does not rule him out of bounds. (In this particular case)
2. At 14 seconds in, we can see our receiver struggle to keep both hands on the ball.  We in fact lose sight of it momentarily before he pulls it triumphantly back into the field of play. Since this was initially ruled a catch on the field, we can’t overturn it on this basis due to lack of concrete evidence he in fact lost hold of it.
3. From here on the outcome is clear. He establishes firm control with both hands and even poses it for the officials in case there is any doubt before a celebratory waddle to the edge of the end zone and interesting spike technique.

So Commentists, I believe we can officially confirm that YES IT IS A CATCH.