As the “hip-drop” tackle becomes more and more prominent in football, the NFL is looking to take aggressive steps to rid the game of it, starting at the highest level.
Two months after NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Miller told reporters during league meetings in New York in October that the league was working on defining the play and then removing it from the game, Commissioner Roger Goodell doubled down on that. Wednesday during the December league meeting in Irving, Texas, he said that the league needs to work “very hard” to get the tackle removed from the game this spring.
“Hip drop, I would tell you, I think we all should work to get that out of the game,” Goodell said, according to NFL.com. “You see it escalated in the number of times it occurred this season. The injury can be very devastating. We saw that also. It’s not just happening at the NFL level. It’s also happening at other levels. (It’s) something I feel like we’ve got to work very hard to get that removed this spring.”
The hip-drop tackle has reportedly caused 25 times more injuries than other tackle attempts, Miller revealed in that October meeting, though what those numbers look like exactly is still unknown.
The hip-drop tackle typically occurs when a defender is making a tackle behind the ball carrier, leaving his feet and then subsequently falling on his hip to drag the player down. More often than not, the ball carrier’s leg or legs get tangled up underneath the player attempting the hip-drop tackle, leading to injuries.
Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Pollard became the poster child for the dangers of the tackle after he broke his leg in 2022 on a hip-drop tackle. Now though, guys like Seattle quarterback Geno Smith, Baltimore tight end Mark Andrews, and Miami wide receiver Tyreek Hill are examples of why the league views the play as dangerous. So is Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis, who broke his leg this season on a hip-drop tackle, an injury that cost the Seminoles a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Though there have been some big-name players unfortunately injured on plays that involve the hip-drop tackle, the tackle is an adjustment by defenders to the already-changed rules when it come to tackling, the strike zone on ball carriers that is deemed safe by the rulebook, and more.
Potential change to the rules and an enforcement against the hip-drop tackle has NFL defenders rather frustrated. In recent months, some Steelers defenders had choice words on the potential removal of the tackle.
Steelers star defensive lineman Cameron Heyward came out against the removal, calling it “so stupid” while star Steelers pass rusher T.J. Watt stated that there is “nothing malicious” with the tackle attempt.
There is nothing malicious about the tackle. It’s a way for defenders to get the ball carrier on the ground without going high and potentially landing a shot to head. It’s unfortunate that guys are getting hurt in the fashion that they are, but removing the hip-drop tackle would only make life all the more difficult for defenders — completely shifting the NFL game even further to an offensive style of football that already dominates the landscape.
Eventually, we’ll probably see tackling removed entirely. That seems to be the way the game is trending. No more physicality, all finesse.
