GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Despite all the talk about what is and isn’t a catch in the NFL -- including from Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy, who has been on each side of the debate the past two postseasons -- longtime referee Walt Coleman doesn’t see what all the fuss is about.

For the officials, Coleman said, what constitutes a catch isn’t all that hard to grasp -- even though NFL players, coaches and fans have struggled with it.

“I think for us, nothing really changed,” Coleman said Monday afternoon during a Q&A session with reporters who regularly cover the Packers. “I think that from an officiating standpoint, we understood what is and what isn’t a catch. Obviously, there’s been a lot of discussion everywhere else about what it is and what it isn’t, but I think for us, we’ve been pretty clear. That basically, you just need to hold onto the football when you hit the ground. But there’s all these gray areas that you can get into.”

As the rule is presently written, there are three basic elements of a catch: control of the ball, two feet in bounds and enough time to become a runner. The time element is new verbiage this year; the NFL removed the ambiguous “football move” portion of the rule a few years ago.

Keep this passage handy from the 2016 NFL rule book. It's the updated version of the... https://t.co/X1N6ZMpXtK pic.twitter.com/K2HTALwVsh — Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) July 7, 2016

As simple as that might seem, Coleman acknowledged with a chuckle that, “There are some teams that still don’t know what a catch is.”

Coleman and his crew were in town to discuss the NFL’s 2016 rule changes with players and coaches as well as to officiate the Packers’ annual Family Night practice on Sunday night. The crew also worked the team’s regular practices on Saturday and Monday.

“From us, we’re just going to continue officiating the play like we have been. Obviously replay makes it much more difficult because you can slow it down and make things look like whatever you want to make it look like,” Coleman said.

“Obviously, how we rule it on the field and how we rule it in replay, we need to try to be consistent. Basically, they just need to hold onto the football when they hit the ground. Most of the plays that there’s been any question about in the past, it’s the plays where the receiver’s going to the ground and he sticks the ball out there, but when he hits the ground he loses the ball. That’s not a catch.

“It didn’t change how we’re going to rule a catch from last year to this year. Just a lot of conversation.”

The Packers have been involved in a controversial catch/non-catch call in the NFC divisional playoff round the past two postseasons.

In January 2015, they benefitted when Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant’s apparent fourth-quarter catch -- which was ruled to be a 31-yard completion on fourth-and-2 and would have given Dallas a first-and-goal situation at the Packers’ 1-yard line -- was overturned on McCarthy’s challenge. After the review, referee Gene Steratore said Bryant did not complete the process of the catch and ruled the pass incomplete, allowing the Packers to run out the final 4 minutes, 6 seconds to preserve the 26-21 victory.

A few weeks later at the Pro Bowl, Packers cornerback Sam Shields, who was covering Bryant on the play, confessed that he believed it was a catch.

Then this past January, McCarthy lost a challenge on a questionable catch by Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald late in the third quarter of what would be a 26-20 overtime loss to the Cardinals. On that play, Fitzgerald caught a ball along the Packers’ sideline and appeared to bobble it as he went out of bounds. The play prompted McCarthy to say after the game, “I don't know what the hell a catch is anymore.”

Coleman and his crew said Monday that they agreed that Fitzgerald’s catch was called correctly.

“Some of the plays that have been in the most question, they don’t have the second foot down when they’re falling to the ground, and when they hit they have to hold onto the ball,” said Gary Slaughter, a 12-year NFL official who serves as the league’s central region supervisor of officials and line of scrimmage supervisor.

“People just see them controlling the ball and are leaving out the two feet and the time element altogether. You’ve got to have control, and the two feet, and the time. That’s really what it boils down to. And we haven’t wavered on that in years, and not a lot has changed about it.”