The NFL is playing a very dangerous game by outlawing the hip-drop tackle.
It was announced Monday that the NFL officially banned the hip-drop tackle via a unanimous vote by the competition committee.
This comes after several players have suffered serious foot and ankle injuries over the last handful of years due to that style of tackle. Tennessee Titans running back Tony Pollard suffered a fractured leg and high ankle sprain against the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs in 2023. Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews also suffered a serious ankle injury as the result of a hip-drop tackle in Week 11 of the 2023 season, which caused him to miss the rest of the regular season.
Several players have voiced their displeasures with the new rule change. Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen said via X that the league will be “2 hand touch” next.
Miami Dolphins safety Jevon Holland also weighed in on X, saying that tackling was now banned.
Defenders are angry, and rightfully so. The deck was already heavily stacked against them in terms of the rules, and the penalties that are handcuffed to them. If defenders make a play on the receiver who is seen as defenseless, they are penalized for unnecessary roughness simply for playing football and trying to break up a pass. Instead of a play like that being an incomplete pass and a fourth down, though, it is 15 yards and an automatic first down.
Pass rushers can’t land with all of their body weight on the quarterback when making a sack, which caused a loud outcry after several awful judgement calls on the rule. Specifically, Dolphins edge rusher Jaelan Phillips was flagged in 2022 against the Chargers after sacking Justin Herbert.
And of course there is the constantly-debated pass interference- the most frequently called defensive penalty that is always the subject of debate. If a defender is flagged for pass interference, it’s an automatic first down and spot of the foul penalty. However, if there is a call for offensive pass interference, the offensive player is flagged for only 10 yards from the previous spot.
And now there is this new hip-drop rule, which is incredibly subjective. The NFL is asking players to defy the laws of physics. If a player is running away from a defender, what else would the NFL like them to do besides grab them and pull them to the ground using their body weight? Well, I’ll tell you what they are going to do- there is going to be a lot more hits to the knee. If guys know that they’ll be penalized for wrapping a guy and dropping their body weight to make a tackle, they’ll avoid the penalty by simply diving at their opponents’ knees, which result in even more injuries. And then in two years, the NFL will ban hits to the knee, and the deck will be stacked against defenders even more.
This a dangerous game the NFL is playing. It’s one thing to want to eliminate shots to the head and neck. Everyone is for making the game safer in that regard. However, when the league continually refuses to remove field turf from the game and make all 32 stadiums have natural grass fields, which players have long called for, it’s hard to take them completely seriously when talking about player safety when they haven’t listened to their players about that nagging that has caused far more injuries than hip-drop tackles have.
This still football at the end of the day. No matter what happens, injuries are unfortunately a part of the game, and they can’t be completely eliminated. It’s a physical, contact sport. At least it was.
