Cardinals TE Trey McBride immediately redeemed himself after a controversial review took away his TD

Despite everything, it is 2023, and we still do not know what clearly constitutes a catch in professional football. And unfortunately, the NFL’s bizarre rules only add confusion whenever a key catch sequence comes up.

Take this key end-of-first-half sequence between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals on Sunday as a perfect example.

After Arizona drove down to the red zone, Kyler Murray launched a perfect dime to his tight end, Trey McBride, who made an acrobatic catch for what appeared to be a touchdown. But this is the NFL, which insists that a catch’s “full process” be completed every time no matter what — a.k.a. the “Calvin Johnson Rule.” Upon further review, McBride’s almost-perfect catch was taken off the board as a result.

He wasted no time redeeming himself against a stout Pittsburgh defensive stand on the very next play:

CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore thought Cardinals TE Trey McBride had a touchdown vs the Steelers, on what was initially ruled a touchdown.

But after review, it was ruled incomplete.

McBride then scored a touchdown that actually counted on the next play. pic.twitter.com/ll5AOe1hLl

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 3, 2023

Even with the NFL’s nonsense catch rules, one evergreen rule trumps all in sports: ball don’t lie.