The NFL has fined seven players for hip-drop tackles this season. None came the past two weeks, league executive vice president Troy Vincent told reporters at the NFL owners meetings in Atlanta.
“Coaches and the players have been outstanding with sending in video, whether it’s their own club without the player making the tackle or something in another game,” Vincent said, via NFL Media.
Officials have yet to call a penalty for a hip-drop tackle during a game, something Vincent and officials both long ago admitted would be the likely outcome of the rule change. The hip-drop tackle is hard to officiate.
Vincent said players have made about 22 questionable tackles.
Texans running back Joe Mixon is a loud critic of officials not penalizing offenders after he was injured on a hip-drop tackle in Week 2. Bears linebacker T.J. Edwards instead was fined $16,883, an amount Mixon deemed too low based on the injury rate of the hip-drop tackle.
Mixon missed three games with his injury.
Vincent, though, said none of the questionable tackles this season met the four-point criteria.
“It’s just so important that all four of the elements show up,” Vincent said. “Reviewing that after the game, some of us have just a better feel and an eye for when those things occur. If there’s not an unweighting and trapping of the legs, you’ve got to stay away from it. But that’s during the week. It gives us and many others the opportunity to evaluate so one player is not penalized for something that didn’t occur, especially in real time with all things kind of look the same.”