The NFL outlawed the hip-drop tackle this year. Through two weeks of the preseason, the illegal tactic didn’t happen many times.
During a media conference call on Thursday, NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller said that the league spotted two hip-drop tackles through two weeks of the preseason. He said that the review of game footage from Week 3 of the preseason has not yet been completed.
Neither hip-drop tackle was flagged. The league isn’t dismayed by that. The NFL largely expects it.
“It really wasn’t the expectation when we went into the hip-drop tackle rule change. Rather, the goal was to get rid of that behavior.”
The league determined that the injury rate is roughly 20 times higher, and the injuries are more serious, when hip-drop tackles happen.
The hip-drop ban was accomplished through the addition of this language to the official rulebook: “It is a foul if a player uses the following technique to bring a runner to the ground: 1. grabs the runner with both hands or wraps the runner with both arms; and 2. unweights himself by swiveling and dropping his hips and/or lower body, landing on and trapping the runner’s leg(s) at or below the knee.”
The key factors are the “unweighting” by the tackler, and landing on the runner’s leg(s). If the defensive player drops his weight but doesn’t land on one or both of the ball carrier’s legs, it’s not a foul. If a tackler lands on the players legs without unweighting himself, it’s also not a foul.
Obviously, that might be hard to discern in real time, with the naked eye.
“If the officials don’t see very clearly on field the elements of the tackle, they’re not going to call it,” Miller said. “But instead our . . . football operations group is going to take a look at it after the fact in an effort to try to remove that through warnings, educations, maybe fines at the end of the day.”
That’s fine, and it makes sense. The problem potentially arises when a flag suddenly flies for a hip-drop tackle in a key moment of a key game. It might be better to make it something that can be fined but not flagged, unless and until there’s a high degree of confidence that the foul will be called consistently.
The league’s apparently acceptance that the flags will be inconsistent opens the door for the tin-foil hat crowd, especially if/when a foul for a hip-drop tackles extends a critical drive, late in a game.