NFL Eliminates Force-Out Rule, Incidental Face Mask Penalty

The NFL has a few rules changes in store for the looming season.

The two I find most interesting are:

• No More Force-Outs. The rule used to be that if a receiver caught a pass while he was in the air and landed out of bounds because of the intervention of a defender forcing him out, the officials could award a completed pass at the point where the receiver went out of bounds. The official had to conclude the receiver would have landed in-bounds if not for the intervention of the defensive player. That rule is gone. You land in bounds or the pass is incomplete.
  
• No More Incidental Face Mask. A few years ago the NFL introduced the notion of an "incidental face mask" grab and slapped it with a five-yard penalty. That penalty is gone, along with a renewed emphasis on catching and penalizing deliberate face mask grabs that twist or pull the player's head and neck.
  

I'm not pleased by either of these changes but it's the first one that has me really wondering about the NFL's wisdom. In removing the force-out rule, the league said its intent was to give equal footing to both the receiver and the pass defender. But I belief this rule change gives the defense a huge advantage. And I'm a fan who prefers offensive to defensive football. Some of the more exciting acrobatic catches of recent seasons have been made at the sidelines where the receiver made a heroic attempt to snare a high toss and -- and this is the key point for me -- would have landed with both feet inbounds if the defender hadn't hit him in the midst of the catch. Those types of catches will now go for naught. Which in turn will result in fewer receivers being willing to risk themselves for such a reception knowing that it's likely to go down as an incompletion regardless of the receiver's effort.

I'd have been a bit mollified if the league had also passed a long-overdue rule requiring the receiver to come down with one foot inbounds rather than both. College ball has used that rule for decades and I can't see that it's diminished the quality or competitiveness of the game at all.

The incidental face mask rule is a bit troubling but not so much so as the force-out rule change. I can see the idea of not wanting to put the officials in a position to know the grabber's intent or mental state when making contact with the face mask. But overall, the danger to the player whose mask is grabbed should be sufficient to offset that concern.

It feels to me like the league's rules committee just feels like it has to tweak something every year to justify its existence.