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

The NFL's catch rules don't make sense but the ball still never lies.

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.