Dez Bryant Non-Catch a Hot Topic at NFL Rookie Symposium

NFL VP of Officialting Dean Blandino visited the Rookie Symposium recently

These days, part of the NFL’s rookie symposium is a visit from VP of Officiating, Dean Blandino, the man most famous in North Texas, probably, for being really outspoken in his (and the league’s) stance that Dez Bryant’s catch in the Divisional Round loss to the Packers in Green Bay was not at all a catch.

But the play remains a hot topic, as evidenced by Blandino’s recent discussion of it with the 2015 class of rookies.

It is well received,” Blandino told SiriusXM NFL Radio, via Pro Football Talk. “I made the mistake yesterday with the rookies of showing the Dez Bryant play too early in the presentation so that was all anybody wanted to talk about.”

Of course, the goal of Blandino’s visit wasn’t to revisit Dez’s catch that wasn’t, but to explain some of the more subtle differences in rules between the college and pro game.

“What we try to do is give the rookie players a basis, a foundation for the rules,” he said. “The rules are different from college to the pros. Some of the basic stuff that everybody knows--two feet vs. one foot and down by contact and those differences--but there are some differences that they have to know in terms of the chop block, what chop blocks are legal in the NFL that are not legal in the college game. We try to give them that background, revolving mainly around protection of the player, things like that, a lot of our safety rules and defenseless players.”

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