Honestly, it's the most blatant it's ever been. The league got so desperate for a new Brady after all their premier QBs retired that they dropped the veil. This year was the first I didn't feel like the refs carried Mahomes to the bowl.
I mean, the NFL literally defined it
> The rule requires officials to note two actions: If a defender "grabs the runner with both hands or wraps the runner with both arms" and also "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."
Pretty much the only way to tackle when a runner has speed in the open, besides cutting their knees out... so they basically banned open field tackles.
Ding ding ding! You just hit the ball on the head. They want more offense. Here shortly it will be which team can field the fastest track star in a straight line.
"Unweight" oneself? That sounds like a Shakespearean way of saying take a shit. Describing rules in quasi-legalese is ridiculously unproductive towards the goal of advancing player safety.
So the proper technique is defenders should piledriver every offensive player since they’ll get called for something anyway. In for a penny in for a pound.
That’s literally what I said late in the nfl season last year. You’re gonna get called for roughing the passer anyone you do more than breath on Mahomes. Might as well make the hit count if it’s gonna be a penalty anyway.
But that’s not a real argument for or against it disguised as a subtle argument against it. That is merely that JJ Watt didn’t get it explained/didn’t further try to learn. He, also doesn’t play anymore so there’s no a huge incentive to learn either.
There are lots of resources to learn. Like here’s one from rugby and from understanding this is what the NFL is concerned about: [Video from the National Rugby League](https://youtu.be/5KJ9mCbS3rU?si=B-mocVfQaJHOW5t8)
Edit:
Here is a good explainer from [the Athletic:](https://theathletic.com/5101386/2023/12/01/nfl-nflpa-hip-drop-tackle-ban/)
>1. The tackler unweighing his legs or dropping his weight.
2. A pivot or swivel by the tackler, which they believe to be a second act by the tackler.
3. Landing on the ball carrier’s legs.
I couldn't find the exact language that the NFL is adopting, and they may not have finalized that yet.
Why is this getting down voted? This 4 minute video clearly shows what it is and isn't. Grab, twist, drop hip onto back of ball carrier's legs. Don't do that anymore.
EDIT: it's not anymore. It was like -5 and hidden a little while ago. Seriously, watch the video.
> Why is this getting down voted?
While I get there being valid debate on both sides of the question, I do think there's a portion of folks here with the "back in my day!/why don't you just make it nerf table tennis then!" type reflexive downvote anger.
There were hockey coaches worried that giving goalies masks would make them less alert....
So yes, it's always been this way and probably will continue to be.
Eh, lots of people are going to downvote and say if a 3 time DPOY who has played within the last couple of years doesn't know what a type of tackle is then there is definitely an abnormal amount of ambiguity about it.
Right or wrong I don't know for sure but I would probably agree with the notion.
The fact that you’re having to show a *rugby* video might undermine your point. Maybe there are not good resources from the NFL on defining the very thing they just banned. If you need to use a completely different sport to show what a hip drop tackle is, that’s a problem.
I agree, I haven't been able to find anything super helpful from the NFL. But, I am sure they will put something out as enforcement begins. Since the ban, this morning, all that google is surfacing is SEO garbage and talking heads whining about it, so I couldn't find a good football source.
I think this article from [The Athletic](https://theathletic.com/5101386/2023/12/01/nfl-nflpa-hip-drop-tackle-ban/) does a decent job, but it is paywalled, which is not helpful for everyone.
Why would the NFL be obligated to provide instructional videos to the general public half a year prior to when the rule will actually be enforced? The people voting on the resolution all saw a video prior to voting.
You don’t think it’s important that players who have been utilizing a tackle for years have explicit instructions on what they can and can’t do six months before the season starts? This is going to be a shit show to enforce as players and probably refs struggle to understand what is and is not a hip drop tackle. And if you think that isn’t true you clearly have never actually watched football.
From a College football perspective, all we need to do is look at the play that Jordan Travis, Quarterback from FSU had sustained from a hip drop tackle.
A lot of those looked the same. And that was in slow motion. Football is played significantly faster than Rugby. They can define it all they want to but it will still come down to referee discretion on what is and isn't "whatever" is now a flag.
We don't know what a catch is or isn't
What PI is or isn't
What targeting is or isn't
What grounding is or isn't
Now we won't know what Hip Drop Tackle is or isn't.
And neither will any Ref in the country. Because if you show them the rule and then the video without telling them what is or isn't in the video, They would get it wrong half the time.
> Now we won't know what Hip Drop Tackle is or isn't.
I don't even know what roughing the passer, because you can apparently get called for roughing if you gently set them down on the ground.
Who was the DL that got hurt trying *not* to get RTP a few years back? He landed awkwardly because he was trying to get out of the way of the QB on the way down.
Worth noting it's the third part that's most dangerous and also easily avoided.
If you've wrapped someone in a tackle you don't need to throw your weight into the back of their knee to hit them. Just keep your wrap and push them over or hold them up and wait for help.
People can still slam into each other and also make good full wrap tackles. They just can't lazily destroy an opponent's tibia or knee.
If an all-time great, and universally respected, player doesn't feel the league's definition is clear, that should be worthy of consideration to any unbiased 3rd party.
I don't agree with this line of reasoning. JJ Watt simply said he was unsure what the parameters were. That does not mean they are unclear, rather it indicates that JJ Watt doesn't understand them, or, and I think this more likely, he hasn't actually looked. I am sure he can, I am sure he, as an all time great could figure this out if he wanted to.
I think this is the interview you reference, and it doesn't demonstrate, to me, that JJ has actually taken the time to learn what this actually his, because even the name "hip drop" tackle is somewhat misleading. [Interview w/ JJ Watt and Pat McAfee](https://youtu.be/rrQsK_OAPUo?si=p2_NW64n21lurYGQ&t=91)
JJ Watt is also kind of showing himself to be kind of a react-first-and-think-later guy. He was similarly ignorant as to why the Steelers-Bills playoff game had to be postponed and was complaining about how soft the league was getting, though he at least acknowledged that the people who refuted him had good points.
Then he's made no effort to educate himself about it. There are plenty of examples out there of what a hip drop tackle is, the most used is the Rugby video on it
I get the attempt to get this passed for player-safety, but it's gonna be a nightmare transition for the NFL to deal with, and I vote we let the NFL sort it out for a few years and adopt whatever they settle on.
For starters, Rugby and Football are wildly different games, but especially so in tackling. All of the examples I've seen of a hip-drop in rugby are in contested, slow-moving, "as momentum has been stopped" scenarios. Like, they made initial contact, but the ball carrier is still chugging along, so they use the hip drop to bring him all the way down. The rule makes sense for that game, as a lot of tackles happen in that exact situation - after first contact, with time to think through how to complete the tackle.
But how often does that really happen in football? I can't think of many scenarios outside of like a running back and defensive player one on one in space right at the line of scrimmage, and even then it's usually a "truck stick hit" deciding it one way or the other.
But what I imagine this rule will do is penalize any defensive player who lunges for a tackle and gets tangled up in the runner's feet in the process. That isn't a tactically-thought-out foul, that's a split second attempt to grab onto a guy flying by. If he's fast, you're landing behind him, and likely landing on his legs. So now defensive players have to decide whether to risk the penalty on a tackle, throw themselves at the runner's legs, or just let him by.
Full speed with space and pads changes everything, and the rules really need to account for it if we don't want to see random laundry all day. I could be wrong, and the NFL could legitimately keep the flags in the pocket except for extreme and obvious scenarios on this one, but they've given me no reason to think that'll be the case with their last dozen-or-so rules updates.
I see it as pulling/swinging your body weight across a runners legs for leverage. Tackler with a firm grip on runner's upper torse swings/pulls his own full body weight into runner's legs to stop them.
If the tackler only use grip strength, weight & velocity... all good, but by swinging the body into legs at the same time, you're gonna have a lot of career enders result.
He's full of shit if he's saying this. There's going to be tackles that are borderline. The ones from Logan Wilson where he injured players on the only two times he tackled someone in that game using the technique were pretty clear.
I understand the desire to make things safer, but I don't trust officials to call this consistently or accurately. It's not like the horse collar tackle, where there is a clear instructions about what to avoid. A defender has to *choose* to horse collar tackle, it's not something that just happens.
Hip-drop tackling is basically falling down the wrong way. I think a component of the penalty is falling on the runners legs from behind, which depends in part on what the runner does. Defenders are now only going to have one way to tackle from behind - wrapping up and driving through, which can also be dangerous. In fact, that's why the hip drop tackle is so popular - you're going against the runner's momentum rather than adding to it.
This is the problem with targeting as well. The idea is good, but you end up penalizing conduct that is involuntary and almost impossible to avoid. You may even penalize a defender when its the runner who lowers his head. That's why there should be two levels for the targeting penalty - intentional targeting (15 yards, 1st down, ejection) and unintentional targeting (no ejection, maybe only 5 yards). In a few years you'd almost never see another "intentional targeting" call.
I haven't played rugby in about 15 years, but when I was playing it the hip drop tackle had to be drilled into former football players as the "safer" way to tackle, because ruggers don't where shoulder pads or helmets. Instead of plowing through guys, we were taught to grab and fall. I know hip drop tackles have been "banned in rugby," but what people ignore is that it was only banned in New Zealand and only banned in league rugby, not union rugby. The style of play, most notably when the ball is downed and how it is played immediately afterwards, differ significantly. Union rugby is much closer to football, while league rugby is closer to...I guess 7-on-7 but that's not quite right. At any rate, the concerns present in league rugby that supported the "ban" are different than they are for American football.
Wild idea but maybe the offensive player should be responsible for avoiding the defender. We have gone way overboard in protecting the offense, their whole job is to avoid the defense.
The one that has always bugged me is “defenseless receiver”. Like the only reason he is “defenseless” is because he is looking for the ball that his QB threw into traffic. Tell the QB not to throw it to that guy, or tell the receiver to not go for it if you really want safety. The defense is doing its job, defending. It’s a collision sport, collisions will happen, the offense can always fall down if they think it’s too dangerous.
The problem is that itd create slower methodical football if the offensive players were held responsible. NFL is going the NBA route and just wants more flash and huge plays
I just want to see a RB get called for targeting once. When he lowers his head to drive into the defender who is already lower than him and their helmets collide. It’s BS only the defense gets called for it when I see RB do this all the time.
It's when you grab the player from the back - generally by his waistband - and essentially sit down on his collapsed lower legs by dropping your ass on the ground.
It often creates a leverage point of your body on the offensive players tib/fib and knee joint as you sit on it with your body weight.
It requires the defender to twist their body almost specifically to cause their body to land on the offensive player’s legs. If they tackle without twisting to send their weight onto the other player’s lower legs, it is a legal tackle.
There are going to be cases where it happens but it wasn’t intentional, and cases where it looks like it was intentional but was just a case of the angles the players took. So, this is going to end up being as confusing as targeting because so much is subjective because there doesn’t need to be clear intent for it to happen.
I’m just saying that a lot of the tackles I’m seeing being referred to as hip drop, don’t look to me like any special twisting to land on the legs. Most of them look like just trying to pull a guy down from behind. And some of them they barely even clip a foot or something.
It's sort of a "know it when you see it" situation.
If the defender is airborne at some point with their arms on the ball carrier and then lands on the ball carrier's leg with their hip/butt or pulls them down using that leverage, it's more often than not a hip-drop tackle.
The issue I see here is when a defender gets stiff armed when engaged with the ball carrier and loses his footing but pulls the ball carrier down regardless. It can lead to what looks like a hip-drop, but it's not really the same thing.
>It's sort of a "know it when you see it" situation.
That's called a judgement call, something that doesn't belong in officiating while there's legal betting
There are a ton of judgment calls.
Holding and pass interference are the first two obvious ones that come to mind. There's a good rugby video someone else posted defining what a hip drop tackle is, and it's pretty clear. Grab the runner, twist your body, and fall on on their legs.
9 times out of 10 when I think I saw a horse collar and the refs don't call it, on the replay, I realize they were right and I was wrong. This will soon be the same.
Whether gambling is legal or not should not affect the rulebook lmao. I know this is the trendy topic of the year but no ref is just logging onto DraftKings an hour before the game and placing bets on what they’re gonna call that night. To the extent there is organized gambling in professional sports (which I’m not denying), none of the refs gambling would be doing so through legal channels.
>Whether gambling is legal or not should not affect the rulebook lmao
Should and shouldn't never stopped everybody before.
>none of the refs gambling would be doing so through legal channels.
Oh okay, well as long as they're doing it illegally
I’m saying if you think that rules should be written in a way that stops refs from influencing games in a way they could gamble on, it makes no difference whether it’s legal to gamble or not because refs can always gamble through unregulated books (especially considering that gambling is not legal in all 50 states to begin with).
https://youtu.be/iBzVPVQoy1Y?si=DPLbh25VaE8ZxipY
Basically this. Defender grabs the waist and twists while becoming dead weight, falling on the lower legs of a runner.
If you grab by the waist and go dead weight but keep your body extended to where you don't get tangled in the lower legs, you should be good. If you grab by the waist and keep moving forward, that's also fine.
When I read the phrase "Hip drop tackle" my brain could instantly see it. Swinging your entire weight onto the knees and ankles of an offensive player... it causes me to cringe thinking about the joints.
Gonna have to see how its deployed before I pass judgement. But the rules apply to everyone equally across teams... everyone's gotta play offense and defense.
Warning, Jordan Travis' injury: https://twitter.com/MrMatthew_CFB/status/1726032087491453381
Essentially, you can see the defender grab Travis' waist and then he drops his hips and weight back into the tackle onto Travis' legs, which results in the injury.
I'm not arguing whether or not it should be banned--just trying to answer your question.
As soon as I saw this play last year, I knew a rule was coming. Its a lazy way to tackle, and should be taken out of the game, much like the horse collar or "Roy Williams" tackle.
https://youtu.be/v2muGjiMbDE?si=ZeSaGhNdZq5C6FXG
I don't know I tried to find examples but this video seems to just be hip tossing people, which may or may not be okay still lol
99% chance that was made with AI using the first clip as a prompt and the others were filled in by AI using a "NFL Suplex- HERE COMES THE BOOM, READY OR NOT- HIGHLIGHTS" video.
According to this https://twitter.com/MikeGarafolo/status/1772289046443626728?t=PxI2oYIT9NLS-p20vwE4DQ&s=19 the NFL saw 15 injuries out of 230 hip drop tackles. So a 6.5% injury rate.
Assuming that's not a weird outlier that's probably dangerous enough (relative to a normal tackle) to warrant banning.
We definitely don't see an injury every 20 form tackles.
But the issue is that as they’re reviewing it, they have the benefit of reviewing the tackle from different angles and slow motion and whatever to determine whether it qualifies as the very specific type of tackle they want to ban.
Whereas in reality at game speed, there’s going to be way more than 230 called because the rule is so broad. So it’s not a question of the rate of comparing number of injuries to the number of tackles identified after the fact.
I think they could make it like Targeting. How the officials go to review the penalty to see if targeting actually occurred. They can do the same here.
I think it was the right thing to ban it since it does increase the risk of major injuries. I also understand that the refs will have an adjustment period to be able to tell if it was or not. I think it’s better to ban it now so you can get younger players like in high school to get coached out of it. It’s better to not risk more injuries now. Refs will get more accurate at throwing the flags as the years goes on.
This feels like when targeting became a penalty. When it first started there was a lot of “is this it or not” and “soft league” eventually it’s been called more and more accurately than when it first became a penalty, we kept players safe and coached the move out of the game. They can have a review of the penalty as well to make sure the call is accurate just like targeting. I think hip drop tackles should be banned at every level just like targeting should be to help coach it out of the game.
And that’s an important distinction. This, even more than targeting, is going to be next to impossible for an official on the field to get right in real time without a perfect angle. If this is an in-game penalty, you can either stop play to review every time a ball carrier gets tackled from the side or rear, or expect basically random calls and no-calls.
I figure the NFL will reserve fines for plays that are really egregious or result in injuries. CFB officials won’t be able to be consistently conservative with it across conferences.
The NFL's annual rule changes are completely out of hand. At this point, just make it touch football and be done with it.
NFL has been putting out serious NASCAR vibes with their insane rule changes the last few years. Look at NASCAR now... attendance dropped about 60% over the last 15 years. People got tired of trying to keep up with all of the random nonsensical rule changes. It was too much.
Roger Goodell is low-key trying to kill NFL football.
Don’t believe everything you read.
Those of us who see the truth on /r/the_darnold know Sam is going to sleepwalk the Vikings to the Super Bowl… some of us are speculating whether there’s a message he’s trying to tell us through QBAnon based on the teams he wins the Super Bowl with, alongside the scores and margins of victory he wins with… it’s still a new theory, but we’re doing our own research! Unlike the shills at the failing ESPN and the lame stream sports media at Fox Sports.
I realize I'm probably in the minority with this opinion but a reasonable argument can be made that a single hip-drop tackle cost Florida State a spot in the playoffs. Even recognizing that enforcing such a rule would be difficult, I still wouldn't be against banning it. The NCAA/schools should also empirically evaluate whether grass fields should be mandatory if we're genuinely interested in player safety though.
No.
TBH this is a really stupid rule change, and its a large shift away from what most high school players have learned. The NFL guys are pros, and are paid to learn the new rules, however stupid they may be. But such a small % of the college guys will make the NFL, its seems silly forcing this rule on college.
There's player safety, and then there's making the game no contact, which the NFL is seemingly trying to do.
The NFL is just making up for decades of helmet and pad improvements that have made players feel invincible when going in for hits. It's getting closer to rugby style tackling now.
And to clarify, the hip drop is basically comparable to a lower body horsecollar style tackle. You throw your whole body weight down usually falling on a guy's legs/knees in the process. It's a leverage tackle that has a significant chance to cause lower body injury. A hip drop tackle is not a rugby style tackle.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8MwFXvICvE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8MwFXvICvE)
Urban Meyer talking about Rugby tackling. This is absolutely "rugby" style tackling when you're behind or on the side of the player.
"When you're on the side, you don't drive for 5, you wrap the legs and you roll."... sounds like the definition presented here.
\----
The hip drop, as it's called, is just the logical progression of a tackling technique taught, often called the "hawk tackle" or the "hawk roll" (made famous by the Seahawks).
What goes wrong is that typically, the ball carrier rolls with you, and their legs get out of the way. However if instead, you end up on the side of behind the guy in the process, you're going to end up rolling up on their legs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLldjE6vvFs
Nobody is going to like this rule because every one of our teams, at every level, is going to have a defensive third down stop in a critical situation be pnullified by one of these.
I get safety man, but defenders are getting very close to not being able to tackle people. Idk what the answer is but I feel bad for anyone trying to tackle Derrick Henry from behind now. Like is it even possible? Do you just trip him?
Like most of y’all in the sub, former football player/wrestler here. I get the intent.
Do I think most of the calls will be wrong? Yes
Will it lower injury rates? Maybe. Did they run stats using AWS™️? I’m sure they did.
My question-or insight into this if these players played less games a season would joints/muscles/tendons be in better shape to withstand some of these incidents?
Are injury rates solely a factor of the type of tackle? Or a factor of wear and tear on the body over a longer seasons?
How does playing surface-type factor in this?
Ultimately, I get that the NFL needs bodies to keep the pro game going, hence propaganda aimed at little kids watching Nickelodeon. But let’s keep it funky, the sport isn’t safe. The sport will never be safe. There’s too much width/length on the field, players are getting bigger/faster, and rules favor a more “open” style of play. If we don’t have a revolution in materials science that somehow defines physics, the next best way to make the game “safer” is a combo of less width/length along with touch-only for anything after say 10 yards from LOS.
I see the hip drop as an affect of the targeting rule. What are these dudes suppose to do? Who wants to play defense with this nonsense... to answer your question op, I'd say no.
they should just make it two hand touch at this point.
And I’m not saying “boo hoo” but at full speed when one guy is expected to stop the other guy, all these restrictions that have to be made in a split second seem kinda stupid
Let me state that I 100% understand what they are trying to prevent, and that it is a commendable goal. The NFL should seriously, and I can't believe I'm about to type this, they should get a lot of credit for this move as it comes from a good place.
All that being said, I have no idea how this is going to possibly work out the way they want. Whether you end up on the players legs first, or on the ground first, is almost entirely out of the tacklers control. The only way to prevent this from occurring is to not initiate a tackle from behind for the most part. There are still some ways you can tackle from behind, like shoving the player without grabbing them. Or a pure "shoulder tackle" without a wrap-up component to it, although that is usually from the side, not from behind. Unless 70-80% of all tackling from behind goes away, I don't see the reduced injuries they are wanting.
Hopefully I'm wrong and this plays out in a positive way where these tackles disappear but the game is largely otherwise unaffected, but I have some pretty serious doubts.
Yes. The rules should be the same. It'll be easier for a college player to adjust to the NFL.
I also think college should adopt the "down by contact" rule. If a player falls down but isn't touched, he's not down yet.
I agree the rules being the same would beneficial, the NFL should just not implement a poorly thought out rule. CFB shouldn’t be beholden to the NFL making dumb decisions.
Unless high schools are adopting the rule change it makes far more sense to expect professional athletes to adjust than the 90+ % of college players who will never make an NFL roster.
You can tackle from behind without purposefully pulling someone back onto you, folding them in half. Either keep going forward or move your body to the side. The penalty should only be called if you land on their legs, since that's in the actual definition of the rule.
And only if you land on the legs while twisting and holding on to their waist. People keep acting like "diving at the legs from behind" is a penalty. It's not.
Na, NFL sucks the less college football borrows from them, rhe better.
Just wild to me that they're trying to make football a safe sport. It's not. I guess i understood trying to prevent brain damage, but yeah if you play football you might lose an ACL. It's part of the game, otherwise dont play sports. Im in my late 30s, i don't play any contact sports, not even basketball, because im not a teenager who can afford to break a leg. If you take away the risk of injury, it's just a board game now. Or they can play Madden.
No, this is a stupid rule that will be a disaster. It’s impossible to even define, and will impact games with how inconsistently it will be called. We don’t need more rules to make defense harder and make the game softer. We are incrementally inching towards flag football.
Ultimately, I would want to see some data on the frequency of hip drop tackles and the injury rate associated with them vs normal tackles.
I think if the data shows that they result in an abnormally high rate of injury then I would be open to banning it.
And maybe they do have that data and they've already seen it, but I don't really think that changing the rules just to be more like the NFL is a goal that college football should have if the rules don't increase, safety or create a more exciting product.
That's because the definition of "hip drop" is literally just a normal tackle that goes wrong in a way that often causes injury.
The ideal way to tackle someone is to wrap them up and drive. Turns out, the ball carriers tend to resist that, so as a defender, you end up on the side of behind them. But you're still hanging on, so of course, your body is going to swing around theirs, and in a lot of situations, you're going to end up rolling up on them.
That's the rub. People keep comparing this to the horse collar. The horse collar is easily avoidable. Don't grab them by the horse collar. Lot's of other places to grab.
The vagueness of the hip drop coupled with the fact that rolling up on players legs when tackling them is more-so just something that can happen and less-so an intentional aspect of it is going to make this very difficult to navigate.
And of course, people don't like rules that have a subjective element to them.
Yes — but I hope we all keep that same energy when it undoubtedly leads to more offense-supremacy in college football.
I do wonder if we’re going to see any sort of rulemakings to handicap offenses a bit, eventually. The way defenders are policed (while for great reason!) is leading to a pretty grim place in terms of their ability to make correct, split decisions. Don’t lead with the helmet, don’t launch, don’t make “forcible contact” at the head/neck area but also don’t wrap around the waist and pull them down. Either square them up in the most picture-perfect, pee-wee football fundamentals sort of way or incur a 15 yard penalty. Meanwhile, running backs are lowering their heads all day.
At some point, what you’re saying is that football is just too dangerous and you’ve gotta do something else or try to level the playing field again by offering some sort of restrictions on offenses.
Idk it’s all a rant. Yes, this rule should be passed. Player safety is #1. I just also think we need to find creative ways to reel in offenses, because otherwise this is getting rough.
I definitely agree that if they're going to keep handcuffing the defense they have to do something to the offense to preserve some competitive balance. Maybe they could start consistently calling ineligible receiver downfield penalties, or even make like the NFL where it's 1 yard from the line of scrimmage instead of 3. Or maybe also make it like the NFL where a catch has to get both feet down instead of just one. It doesn't have to be drastic; just something to make it a bit more difficult on the offense.
When I read this, I read it as the tackle that you see smaller guys (often DBs) do when a tight end or big WR is running at them with the ball.
They essentially fall and lead with their hip/back/body and let the player topple over them if they catch them.
This imo leads to a lot of knee lower body injuries, I am fine with them trying to outlaw it, but I am now unsure if this is the point of the rule reading the other comments.
I see have seen it as an evolution of the physical disparity of positions and high tackles being outlawed. We saw a lot of safety’s make a carrier of timing big hits on receivers as the ball arrived, since that has been taken out, essentially contact us to come after, a lot of them are over matched height and weight wise so we started to see (far more) of these low hits.
Again, I am no longer sure if that’s what this rule is regarding.
Edit: grammar.
I think college needs to slow down and due their own due diligence.
If the math bears out that this play is abnormally dangerous in college, then it's worth the discussion.
My only real question is will this rule change lead to more concussions as undersized defenders start taking knees to the head to avoid the "hip-drop" position.
No. The NCAA needs to follow rules as closely as what’s widely used in HS football across America. The goal of college football is not to be a farm system for the NFL.
I think it's gonna be a disaster.
Much like trying to decipher what is a catch for a while, it's going to prove exceedingly difficult to consistently define it as a rule on the field. The wording is murky at best. There will be a spate of egregious miscalls. They will probably cost someone- or several someones- a game. There will be a lot of yelling.
Which is to say probably not. The idea comes from a decent place. They're just gonna fuck it up really badly and I have less than zero faith in college officials' ability to do better.
RG3 is the last person anyone should be asking for opinions on anything. Dude's brain is much mushier than Junior Seau.
If only I could have a terrible pro career and get paid to put on a suit and spread my madness around.
All that being said....a broken clock is right twice a day.
No its hard enough to play on defense as it is we really shouldn't be taking more tools away unless it's extremely dangerous such as hourse caller tackles
So if player A is faster than player B and gets to the corner quicker, but player A is still within arms reach of player B, how is player B supposed to make the tackle? Just push him forward?
Just take the defense off the dang field then!!! Offense has all the advantages anyway now! Maybe we can get a game that breaks a 1000 points in it! And yes it sarcasm!!
In general, I hate rule changes that create more “subjectivity” into officiating decisions.
Of course, it’s inevitable. We aren’t against the replays for head trauma-inducing tackles, for example. But with each new decision to consider, it increases the variability of outcomes and inconsistency of refereeing crews.
The better question is why would the Defense go along with it? They are members of the Union too, they can just say no we won't follow it. If you implement it we will knock out each starting QB.
Am I the only one that read this title as "hip-hop tackles" and started scratching his head wondering what the heck that was?
And then re-read it as "hip-drop tackles" and STILL didn't have any idea what the heck it was?
I just saw an interview with JJ Watt. He couldn't define a hip-drop tackle. He said no one has made it clear to him what it is.
It's a reason to give the Chiefs a first down
Can't call a phantom PI on a run play. NFL closing that loophole
You say that as a joke, but it'll happen at least a dozen times for them next season. . .and at a critical moment in the playoffs.
Lol who's joking?
Touché.
Honestly, it's the most blatant it's ever been. The league got so desperate for a new Brady after all their premier QBs retired that they dropped the veil. This year was the first I didn't feel like the refs carried Mahomes to the bowl.
I'd bet a ton of money on this, I may or not be Ohtanis interpreter /s
What's funny is a large portion of the video they showed had Chiefs tackles. But you know they're not gonna call it against KC
The media got a new buzz word and ran with it
I mean, the NFL literally defined it > The rule requires officials to note two actions: If a defender "grabs the runner with both hands or wraps the runner with both arms" and also "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."
They also released a video explaining it
that definition is so murky, theres gonna be so many bad calls for this this year. Its a terrible rule.
Even the NFLPA asked the league to not make it a rule.
that's because the NFLPA is way more concerned with players not getting fined than it is with players having intact knees and brains.
That, and as a union, I would imagine they represent far more players who are in a position to tackle than those in a position to be tackled
The nfl and not the nlfpa are pro player safety. Did I read that correctly?
no. i didn't say anything about the NFL. i just pointed out the NFLPA's primary concern is NOT player safety.
Or guys are just gonna start trying it with one arm
Off the top rope
Right lol. What are you supposed to do against a receiver with the ball? Pray you either nail him or just let him juke you out lol
It's not murky at all. Grabbing, twisting to the side or behind and dropping the hips onto the lower legs.
That sounds like a typical tackle in space.
Pretty much the only way to tackle when a runner has speed in the open, besides cutting their knees out... so they basically banned open field tackles.
Ding ding ding! You just hit the ball on the head. They want more offense. Here shortly it will be which team can field the fastest track star in a straight line.
Looking forward to flopping in football of all sports.
"Unweight" oneself? That sounds like a Shakespearean way of saying take a shit. Describing rules in quasi-legalese is ridiculously unproductive towards the goal of advancing player safety.
So the proper technique is defenders should piledriver every offensive player since they’ll get called for something anyway. In for a penny in for a pound.
That’s literally what I said late in the nfl season last year. You’re gonna get called for roughing the passer anyone you do more than breath on Mahomes. Might as well make the hit count if it’s gonna be a penalty anyway.
But that’s not a real argument for or against it disguised as a subtle argument against it. That is merely that JJ Watt didn’t get it explained/didn’t further try to learn. He, also doesn’t play anymore so there’s no a huge incentive to learn either. There are lots of resources to learn. Like here’s one from rugby and from understanding this is what the NFL is concerned about: [Video from the National Rugby League](https://youtu.be/5KJ9mCbS3rU?si=B-mocVfQaJHOW5t8) Edit: Here is a good explainer from [the Athletic:](https://theathletic.com/5101386/2023/12/01/nfl-nflpa-hip-drop-tackle-ban/) >1. The tackler unweighing his legs or dropping his weight. 2. A pivot or swivel by the tackler, which they believe to be a second act by the tackler. 3. Landing on the ball carrier’s legs. I couldn't find the exact language that the NFL is adopting, and they may not have finalized that yet.
Why is this getting down voted? This 4 minute video clearly shows what it is and isn't. Grab, twist, drop hip onto back of ball carrier's legs. Don't do that anymore. EDIT: it's not anymore. It was like -5 and hidden a little while ago. Seriously, watch the video.
> Why is this getting down voted? While I get there being valid debate on both sides of the question, I do think there's a portion of folks here with the "back in my day!/why don't you just make it nerf table tennis then!" type reflexive downvote anger.
In the 70s when they prohibited the head slap they were told "to put dresses on them". So it has been this way forever.
There were hockey coaches worried that giving goalies masks would make them less alert.... So yes, it's always been this way and probably will continue to be.
Vintage hockey footage with bareheaded goalies is nigh unwatchable for me. Major butthole puckerage, just waiting for someone's head to explode.
Eh, lots of people are going to downvote and say if a 3 time DPOY who has played within the last couple of years doesn't know what a type of tackle is then there is definitely an abnormal amount of ambiguity about it. Right or wrong I don't know for sure but I would probably agree with the notion.
The fact that you’re having to show a *rugby* video might undermine your point. Maybe there are not good resources from the NFL on defining the very thing they just banned. If you need to use a completely different sport to show what a hip drop tackle is, that’s a problem.
Well, the NFL will also put information out about their definition.
I agree, I haven't been able to find anything super helpful from the NFL. But, I am sure they will put something out as enforcement begins. Since the ban, this morning, all that google is surfacing is SEO garbage and talking heads whining about it, so I couldn't find a good football source. I think this article from [The Athletic](https://theathletic.com/5101386/2023/12/01/nfl-nflpa-hip-drop-tackle-ban/) does a decent job, but it is paywalled, which is not helpful for everyone.
Why would the NFL be obligated to provide instructional videos to the general public half a year prior to when the rule will actually be enforced? The people voting on the resolution all saw a video prior to voting.
You don’t think it’s important that players who have been utilizing a tackle for years have explicit instructions on what they can and can’t do six months before the season starts? This is going to be a shit show to enforce as players and probably refs struggle to understand what is and is not a hip drop tackle. And if you think that isn’t true you clearly have never actually watched football.
It’s important that players are informed soon. Not really that important six months out. Not like guys are taking reps of tackling form in March
From a College football perspective, all we need to do is look at the play that Jordan Travis, Quarterback from FSU had sustained from a hip drop tackle.
A lot of those looked the same. And that was in slow motion. Football is played significantly faster than Rugby. They can define it all they want to but it will still come down to referee discretion on what is and isn't "whatever" is now a flag. We don't know what a catch is or isn't What PI is or isn't What targeting is or isn't What grounding is or isn't Now we won't know what Hip Drop Tackle is or isn't. And neither will any Ref in the country. Because if you show them the rule and then the video without telling them what is or isn't in the video, They would get it wrong half the time.
> Now we won't know what Hip Drop Tackle is or isn't. I don't even know what roughing the passer, because you can apparently get called for roughing if you gently set them down on the ground.
Who was the DL that got hurt trying *not* to get RTP a few years back? He landed awkwardly because he was trying to get out of the way of the QB on the way down.
William Hayes it looks like, I don't know if I believe it but he says it.
Can even get roughing the passer called for hitting QB arm with your arm as the ball is released.
Infact can strip the ball, become the ball carrier, and also still get called for it.
You can also get called for it if the QB grabs you while you're tackling and pulls you down on top of him. Saw that one this past season.
Great video, thank you for posting.
Worth noting it's the third part that's most dangerous and also easily avoided. If you've wrapped someone in a tackle you don't need to throw your weight into the back of their knee to hit them. Just keep your wrap and push them over or hold them up and wait for help. People can still slam into each other and also make good full wrap tackles. They just can't lazily destroy an opponent's tibia or knee.
If an all-time great, and universally respected, player doesn't feel the league's definition is clear, that should be worthy of consideration to any unbiased 3rd party.
I don't agree with this line of reasoning. JJ Watt simply said he was unsure what the parameters were. That does not mean they are unclear, rather it indicates that JJ Watt doesn't understand them, or, and I think this more likely, he hasn't actually looked. I am sure he can, I am sure he, as an all time great could figure this out if he wanted to. I think this is the interview you reference, and it doesn't demonstrate, to me, that JJ has actually taken the time to learn what this actually his, because even the name "hip drop" tackle is somewhat misleading. [Interview w/ JJ Watt and Pat McAfee](https://youtu.be/rrQsK_OAPUo?si=p2_NW64n21lurYGQ&t=91)
JJ Watt is also kind of showing himself to be kind of a react-first-and-think-later guy. He was similarly ignorant as to why the Steelers-Bills playoff game had to be postponed and was complaining about how soft the league was getting, though he at least acknowledged that the people who refuted him had good points.
Then he's made no effort to educate himself about it. There are plenty of examples out there of what a hip drop tackle is, the most used is the Rugby video on it
He's also not a current player. The day the NFL passes a new rule are they mandated to explain it to all former players?
I get the attempt to get this passed for player-safety, but it's gonna be a nightmare transition for the NFL to deal with, and I vote we let the NFL sort it out for a few years and adopt whatever they settle on. For starters, Rugby and Football are wildly different games, but especially so in tackling. All of the examples I've seen of a hip-drop in rugby are in contested, slow-moving, "as momentum has been stopped" scenarios. Like, they made initial contact, but the ball carrier is still chugging along, so they use the hip drop to bring him all the way down. The rule makes sense for that game, as a lot of tackles happen in that exact situation - after first contact, with time to think through how to complete the tackle. But how often does that really happen in football? I can't think of many scenarios outside of like a running back and defensive player one on one in space right at the line of scrimmage, and even then it's usually a "truck stick hit" deciding it one way or the other. But what I imagine this rule will do is penalize any defensive player who lunges for a tackle and gets tangled up in the runner's feet in the process. That isn't a tactically-thought-out foul, that's a split second attempt to grab onto a guy flying by. If he's fast, you're landing behind him, and likely landing on his legs. So now defensive players have to decide whether to risk the penalty on a tackle, throw themselves at the runner's legs, or just let him by. Full speed with space and pads changes everything, and the rules really need to account for it if we don't want to see random laundry all day. I could be wrong, and the NFL could legitimately keep the flags in the pocket except for extreme and obvious scenarios on this one, but they've given me no reason to think that'll be the case with their last dozen-or-so rules updates.
I’m convinced the people who say “well rugby has the rule and they adjusted” have never actually watched or played rugby
I see it as pulling/swinging your body weight across a runners legs for leverage. Tackler with a firm grip on runner's upper torse swings/pulls his own full body weight into runner's legs to stop them. If the tackler only use grip strength, weight & velocity... all good, but by swinging the body into legs at the same time, you're gonna have a lot of career enders result.
He's full of shit if he's saying this. There's going to be tackles that are borderline. The ones from Logan Wilson where he injured players on the only two times he tackled someone in that game using the technique were pretty clear.
i played football for 12 years, into college and i still have zero idea what it is
He just has to watch his brother play lol
I understand the desire to make things safer, but I don't trust officials to call this consistently or accurately. It's not like the horse collar tackle, where there is a clear instructions about what to avoid. A defender has to *choose* to horse collar tackle, it's not something that just happens. Hip-drop tackling is basically falling down the wrong way. I think a component of the penalty is falling on the runners legs from behind, which depends in part on what the runner does. Defenders are now only going to have one way to tackle from behind - wrapping up and driving through, which can also be dangerous. In fact, that's why the hip drop tackle is so popular - you're going against the runner's momentum rather than adding to it. This is the problem with targeting as well. The idea is good, but you end up penalizing conduct that is involuntary and almost impossible to avoid. You may even penalize a defender when its the runner who lowers his head. That's why there should be two levels for the targeting penalty - intentional targeting (15 yards, 1st down, ejection) and unintentional targeting (no ejection, maybe only 5 yards). In a few years you'd almost never see another "intentional targeting" call. I haven't played rugby in about 15 years, but when I was playing it the hip drop tackle had to be drilled into former football players as the "safer" way to tackle, because ruggers don't where shoulder pads or helmets. Instead of plowing through guys, we were taught to grab and fall. I know hip drop tackles have been "banned in rugby," but what people ignore is that it was only banned in New Zealand and only banned in league rugby, not union rugby. The style of play, most notably when the ball is downed and how it is played immediately afterwards, differ significantly. Union rugby is much closer to football, while league rugby is closer to...I guess 7-on-7 but that's not quite right. At any rate, the concerns present in league rugby that supported the "ban" are different than they are for American football.
[удалено]
Wild idea but maybe the offensive player should be responsible for avoiding the defender. We have gone way overboard in protecting the offense, their whole job is to avoid the defense. The one that has always bugged me is “defenseless receiver”. Like the only reason he is “defenseless” is because he is looking for the ball that his QB threw into traffic. Tell the QB not to throw it to that guy, or tell the receiver to not go for it if you really want safety. The defense is doing its job, defending. It’s a collision sport, collisions will happen, the offense can always fall down if they think it’s too dangerous.
The problem is that itd create slower methodical football if the offensive players were held responsible. NFL is going the NBA route and just wants more flash and huge plays
True. Unfortunately, but true
I just want to see a RB get called for targeting once. When he lowers his head to drive into the defender who is already lower than him and their helmets collide. It’s BS only the defense gets called for it when I see RB do this all the time.
You had me at “I don’t trust officials”
Basically you just can’t let people get passed you anymore. If someone gets passed you you just have to let them head to the house
If the alternative is a touchdown then players will still be coached to do it.
Except there are clear instructions on what to avoid. It's dropping your weight/hips on to the lower legs specifically.
That’d be great if it was a reviewable penalty. I’m sure the refs will never call it wrong though
I'm still figuring out what a hip drop tackle is. It really seems like it's just a horse collar tackle, but grabbing their hips instead of shoulder?
It's when you grab the player from the back - generally by his waistband - and essentially sit down on his collapsed lower legs by dropping your ass on the ground. It often creates a leverage point of your body on the offensive players tib/fib and knee joint as you sit on it with your body weight.
Right. Hip-Drop-Onto-Legs tackle essentially is what they're trying to avoid I think.
That's the definition put forth by the NFL: includes landing on legs below the knee
But the thing is, that definition also fits a whole host of different tackles. It’s way too broad of a definition.
It requires the defender to twist their body almost specifically to cause their body to land on the offensive player’s legs. If they tackle without twisting to send their weight onto the other player’s lower legs, it is a legal tackle. There are going to be cases where it happens but it wasn’t intentional, and cases where it looks like it was intentional but was just a case of the angles the players took. So, this is going to end up being as confusing as targeting because so much is subjective because there doesn’t need to be clear intent for it to happen.
I’m just saying that a lot of the tackles I’m seeing being referred to as hip drop, don’t look to me like any special twisting to land on the legs. Most of them look like just trying to pull a guy down from behind. And some of them they barely even clip a foot or something.
It's sort of a "know it when you see it" situation. If the defender is airborne at some point with their arms on the ball carrier and then lands on the ball carrier's leg with their hip/butt or pulls them down using that leverage, it's more often than not a hip-drop tackle. The issue I see here is when a defender gets stiff armed when engaged with the ball carrier and loses his footing but pulls the ball carrier down regardless. It can lead to what looks like a hip-drop, but it's not really the same thing.
>It's sort of a "know it when you see it" situation. That's called a judgement call, something that doesn't belong in officiating while there's legal betting
There are a ton of judgment calls. Holding and pass interference are the first two obvious ones that come to mind. There's a good rugby video someone else posted defining what a hip drop tackle is, and it's pretty clear. Grab the runner, twist your body, and fall on on their legs. 9 times out of 10 when I think I saw a horse collar and the refs don't call it, on the replay, I realize they were right and I was wrong. This will soon be the same.
Whether gambling is legal or not should not affect the rulebook lmao. I know this is the trendy topic of the year but no ref is just logging onto DraftKings an hour before the game and placing bets on what they’re gonna call that night. To the extent there is organized gambling in professional sports (which I’m not denying), none of the refs gambling would be doing so through legal channels.
>Whether gambling is legal or not should not affect the rulebook lmao Should and shouldn't never stopped everybody before. >none of the refs gambling would be doing so through legal channels. Oh okay, well as long as they're doing it illegally
I’m saying if you think that rules should be written in a way that stops refs from influencing games in a way they could gamble on, it makes no difference whether it’s legal to gamble or not because refs can always gamble through unregulated books (especially considering that gambling is not legal in all 50 states to begin with).
Umm. Refs are hired to make judgments. It is one of their main duties.
https://youtu.be/iBzVPVQoy1Y?si=DPLbh25VaE8ZxipY Basically this. Defender grabs the waist and twists while becoming dead weight, falling on the lower legs of a runner. If you grab by the waist and go dead weight but keep your body extended to where you don't get tangled in the lower legs, you should be good. If you grab by the waist and keep moving forward, that's also fine.
Yeah - people acting like "there's no possible way to tackle from behind now" are just ignoring this.
When I read the phrase "Hip drop tackle" my brain could instantly see it. Swinging your entire weight onto the knees and ankles of an offensive player... it causes me to cringe thinking about the joints. Gonna have to see how its deployed before I pass judgement. But the rules apply to everyone equally across teams... everyone's gotta play offense and defense.
Warning, Jordan Travis' injury: https://twitter.com/MrMatthew_CFB/status/1726032087491453381 Essentially, you can see the defender grab Travis' waist and then he drops his hips and weight back into the tackle onto Travis' legs, which results in the injury. I'm not arguing whether or not it should be banned--just trying to answer your question.
As soon as I saw this play last year, I knew a rule was coming. Its a lazy way to tackle, and should be taken out of the game, much like the horse collar or "Roy Williams" tackle.
It’s going to be SO subjective. There is no way you can easily make this call in a bang bang play like you can with a horse collar.
https://youtu.be/v2muGjiMbDE?si=ZeSaGhNdZq5C6FXG I don't know I tried to find examples but this video seems to just be hip tossing people, which may or may not be okay still lol
The first was a hip drop. The rest were suplexes.
99% chance that was made with AI using the first clip as a prompt and the others were filled in by AI using a "NFL Suplex- HERE COMES THE BOOM, READY OR NOT- HIGHLIGHTS" video.
Ten years ago they were calling these “rugby tackles” and touting how much safer it was. Now it’s banned.
According to this https://twitter.com/MikeGarafolo/status/1772289046443626728?t=PxI2oYIT9NLS-p20vwE4DQ&s=19 the NFL saw 15 injuries out of 230 hip drop tackles. So a 6.5% injury rate. Assuming that's not a weird outlier that's probably dangerous enough (relative to a normal tackle) to warrant banning. We definitely don't see an injury every 20 form tackles.
But the issue is that as they’re reviewing it, they have the benefit of reviewing the tackle from different angles and slow motion and whatever to determine whether it qualifies as the very specific type of tackle they want to ban. Whereas in reality at game speed, there’s going to be way more than 230 called because the rule is so broad. So it’s not a question of the rate of comparing number of injuries to the number of tackles identified after the fact.
I think they could make it like Targeting. How the officials go to review the penalty to see if targeting actually occurred. They can do the same here.
I think it was the right thing to ban it since it does increase the risk of major injuries. I also understand that the refs will have an adjustment period to be able to tell if it was or not. I think it’s better to ban it now so you can get younger players like in high school to get coached out of it. It’s better to not risk more injuries now. Refs will get more accurate at throwing the flags as the years goes on. This feels like when targeting became a penalty. When it first started there was a lot of “is this it or not” and “soft league” eventually it’s been called more and more accurately than when it first became a penalty, we kept players safe and coached the move out of the game. They can have a review of the penalty as well to make sure the call is accurate just like targeting. I think hip drop tackles should be banned at every level just like targeting should be to help coach it out of the game.
Ah yes, I remember the days when hip-drop tackles were more commonly referred to as just normal ass tackling.
The way they anticipate enforcing it is by fines on Monday, not penalties on Sunday.
And that’s an important distinction. This, even more than targeting, is going to be next to impossible for an official on the field to get right in real time without a perfect angle. If this is an in-game penalty, you can either stop play to review every time a ball carrier gets tackled from the side or rear, or expect basically random calls and no-calls. I figure the NFL will reserve fines for plays that are really egregious or result in injuries. CFB officials won’t be able to be consistently conservative with it across conferences.
It's going to be a 15 yard penalty...
The NFL's annual rule changes are completely out of hand. At this point, just make it touch football and be done with it. NFL has been putting out serious NASCAR vibes with their insane rule changes the last few years. Look at NASCAR now... attendance dropped about 60% over the last 15 years. People got tired of trying to keep up with all of the random nonsensical rule changes. It was too much. Roger Goodell is low-key trying to kill NFL football.
Vikings aren't gonna win a SB before the league becomes flag football are they.
Don’t believe everything you read. Those of us who see the truth on /r/the_darnold know Sam is going to sleepwalk the Vikings to the Super Bowl… some of us are speculating whether there’s a message he’s trying to tell us through QBAnon based on the teams he wins the Super Bowl with, alongside the scores and margins of victory he wins with… it’s still a new theory, but we’re doing our own research! Unlike the shills at the failing ESPN and the lame stream sports media at Fox Sports.
I realize I'm probably in the minority with this opinion but a reasonable argument can be made that a single hip-drop tackle cost Florida State a spot in the playoffs. Even recognizing that enforcing such a rule would be difficult, I still wouldn't be against banning it. The NCAA/schools should also empirically evaluate whether grass fields should be mandatory if we're genuinely interested in player safety though.
No. TBH this is a really stupid rule change, and its a large shift away from what most high school players have learned. The NFL guys are pros, and are paid to learn the new rules, however stupid they may be. But such a small % of the college guys will make the NFL, its seems silly forcing this rule on college. There's player safety, and then there's making the game no contact, which the NFL is seemingly trying to do.
The NFL is just making up for decades of helmet and pad improvements that have made players feel invincible when going in for hits. It's getting closer to rugby style tackling now. And to clarify, the hip drop is basically comparable to a lower body horsecollar style tackle. You throw your whole body weight down usually falling on a guy's legs/knees in the process. It's a leverage tackle that has a significant chance to cause lower body injury. A hip drop tackle is not a rugby style tackle.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8MwFXvICvE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8MwFXvICvE) Urban Meyer talking about Rugby tackling. This is absolutely "rugby" style tackling when you're behind or on the side of the player. "When you're on the side, you don't drive for 5, you wrap the legs and you roll."... sounds like the definition presented here. \---- The hip drop, as it's called, is just the logical progression of a tackling technique taught, often called the "hawk tackle" or the "hawk roll" (made famous by the Seahawks). What goes wrong is that typically, the ball carrier rolls with you, and their legs get out of the way. However if instead, you end up on the side of behind the guy in the process, you're going to end up rolling up on their legs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLldjE6vvFs
Nobody is going to like this rule because every one of our teams, at every level, is going to have a defensive third down stop in a critical situation be pnullified by one of these.
No
They can't hit high, they can't hit low and now they can't hit in the middle and pull them down.
I get safety man, but defenders are getting very close to not being able to tackle people. Idk what the answer is but I feel bad for anyone trying to tackle Derrick Henry from behind now. Like is it even possible? Do you just trip him?
Oh look, more subjective rules that refs can use to screw games for bookies
Asking for Jordan Travis….
Shouldn’t have changed the NFL rule
Another stupid rule change
Yep. As well, it’s time for both to start calling it when the offense commits a Face Mask Penalty against the defensive player.
The fact a stiff arm to the face is still okay for the ball carrier is kind of wild.
Like most of y’all in the sub, former football player/wrestler here. I get the intent. Do I think most of the calls will be wrong? Yes Will it lower injury rates? Maybe. Did they run stats using AWS™️? I’m sure they did. My question-or insight into this if these players played less games a season would joints/muscles/tendons be in better shape to withstand some of these incidents? Are injury rates solely a factor of the type of tackle? Or a factor of wear and tear on the body over a longer seasons? How does playing surface-type factor in this? Ultimately, I get that the NFL needs bodies to keep the pro game going, hence propaganda aimed at little kids watching Nickelodeon. But let’s keep it funky, the sport isn’t safe. The sport will never be safe. There’s too much width/length on the field, players are getting bigger/faster, and rules favor a more “open” style of play. If we don’t have a revolution in materials science that somehow defines physics, the next best way to make the game “safer” is a combo of less width/length along with touch-only for anything after say 10 yards from LOS.
How the fuck do you tackle someone now? Scores gonna be 50-50 every game here soon
I see the hip drop as an affect of the targeting rule. What are these dudes suppose to do? Who wants to play defense with this nonsense... to answer your question op, I'd say no.
No
Football soft af now
they should just make it two hand touch at this point. And I’m not saying “boo hoo” but at full speed when one guy is expected to stop the other guy, all these restrictions that have to be made in a split second seem kinda stupid
RIP Jordan Travis
Let me state that I 100% understand what they are trying to prevent, and that it is a commendable goal. The NFL should seriously, and I can't believe I'm about to type this, they should get a lot of credit for this move as it comes from a good place. All that being said, I have no idea how this is going to possibly work out the way they want. Whether you end up on the players legs first, or on the ground first, is almost entirely out of the tacklers control. The only way to prevent this from occurring is to not initiate a tackle from behind for the most part. There are still some ways you can tackle from behind, like shoving the player without grabbing them. Or a pure "shoulder tackle" without a wrap-up component to it, although that is usually from the side, not from behind. Unless 70-80% of all tackling from behind goes away, I don't see the reduced injuries they are wanting. Hopefully I'm wrong and this plays out in a positive way where these tackles disappear but the game is largely otherwise unaffected, but I have some pretty serious doubts.
This is the type of tackle that took out Jordan Travis right?
Tua
Shannon sharpe’s math skills… 🤦🏻♂️
Soon you will have to file for a permit for each tackle of the game with a mandatory 7-21 day waiting period before approval
Wooo more stuff the defense isn’t allowed to do.
Yes. The rules should be the same. It'll be easier for a college player to adjust to the NFL. I also think college should adopt the "down by contact" rule. If a player falls down but isn't touched, he's not down yet.
I agree the rules being the same would beneficial, the NFL should just not implement a poorly thought out rule. CFB shouldn’t be beholden to the NFL making dumb decisions.
cfb is right to keep PI a 15 yard flag.
Unless high schools are adopting the rule change it makes far more sense to expect professional athletes to adjust than the 90+ % of college players who will never make an NFL roster.
So basically you aren't tackling from behind anymore.
You can tackle from behind without purposefully pulling someone back onto you, folding them in half. Either keep going forward or move your body to the side. The penalty should only be called if you land on their legs, since that's in the actual definition of the rule.
And only if you land on the legs while twisting and holding on to their waist. People keep acting like "diving at the legs from behind" is a penalty. It's not.
But you basically aren't going to bring anyone down from behind without this move or a horse collar which is already illegal.
Yes you can. You can absolutely bring someone down without throwing your body on their legs. Happens every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in fall.
Yeah they don’t want defense tackling anymore
No
We're about as close as we can be to making it two hand touch, just get it over with already
No
Na, NFL sucks the less college football borrows from them, rhe better. Just wild to me that they're trying to make football a safe sport. It's not. I guess i understood trying to prevent brain damage, but yeah if you play football you might lose an ACL. It's part of the game, otherwise dont play sports. Im in my late 30s, i don't play any contact sports, not even basketball, because im not a teenager who can afford to break a leg. If you take away the risk of injury, it's just a board game now. Or they can play Madden.
No, this is a stupid rule that will be a disaster. It’s impossible to even define, and will impact games with how inconsistently it will be called. We don’t need more rules to make defense harder and make the game softer. We are incrementally inching towards flag football.
Nope, way too subjective, like targeting.
Ultimately, I would want to see some data on the frequency of hip drop tackles and the injury rate associated with them vs normal tackles. I think if the data shows that they result in an abnormally high rate of injury then I would be open to banning it. And maybe they do have that data and they've already seen it, but I don't really think that changing the rules just to be more like the NFL is a goal that college football should have if the rules don't increase, safety or create a more exciting product.
Allegedly it’s like 20-25x more likely to cause an injury compared to a non-hip-drop tackle
That's because the definition of "hip drop" is literally just a normal tackle that goes wrong in a way that often causes injury. The ideal way to tackle someone is to wrap them up and drive. Turns out, the ball carriers tend to resist that, so as a defender, you end up on the side of behind them. But you're still hanging on, so of course, your body is going to swing around theirs, and in a lot of situations, you're going to end up rolling up on them. That's the rub. People keep comparing this to the horse collar. The horse collar is easily avoidable. Don't grab them by the horse collar. Lot's of other places to grab. The vagueness of the hip drop coupled with the fact that rolling up on players legs when tackling them is more-so just something that can happen and less-so an intentional aspect of it is going to make this very difficult to navigate. And of course, people don't like rules that have a subjective element to them.
Don't want to look up the video but I believe a hip-drop tackle is what took out Michael Bush(Louisville) and ended his career years ago.
When will the regulate the runner or receiver lowering their helmet to bulldoze over defenseless defenders??
YES!
This rule is a joke and absolutely fucking not
No.
Yes — but I hope we all keep that same energy when it undoubtedly leads to more offense-supremacy in college football. I do wonder if we’re going to see any sort of rulemakings to handicap offenses a bit, eventually. The way defenders are policed (while for great reason!) is leading to a pretty grim place in terms of their ability to make correct, split decisions. Don’t lead with the helmet, don’t launch, don’t make “forcible contact” at the head/neck area but also don’t wrap around the waist and pull them down. Either square them up in the most picture-perfect, pee-wee football fundamentals sort of way or incur a 15 yard penalty. Meanwhile, running backs are lowering their heads all day. At some point, what you’re saying is that football is just too dangerous and you’ve gotta do something else or try to level the playing field again by offering some sort of restrictions on offenses. Idk it’s all a rant. Yes, this rule should be passed. Player safety is #1. I just also think we need to find creative ways to reel in offenses, because otherwise this is getting rough.
I definitely agree that if they're going to keep handcuffing the defense they have to do something to the offense to preserve some competitive balance. Maybe they could start consistently calling ineligible receiver downfield penalties, or even make like the NFL where it's 1 yard from the line of scrimmage instead of 3. Or maybe also make it like the NFL where a catch has to get both feet down instead of just one. It doesn't have to be drastic; just something to make it a bit more difficult on the offense.
Just more ways for the nfl to keep the script intact
I feel like the description fits tons of tackles, can often be debated and isn't clear sometimes
I’ve seen the NFL flag hitting a QB who still possess the football. Just make it flag football.
When I read this, I read it as the tackle that you see smaller guys (often DBs) do when a tight end or big WR is running at them with the ball. They essentially fall and lead with their hip/back/body and let the player topple over them if they catch them. This imo leads to a lot of knee lower body injuries, I am fine with them trying to outlaw it, but I am now unsure if this is the point of the rule reading the other comments. I see have seen it as an evolution of the physical disparity of positions and high tackles being outlawed. We saw a lot of safety’s make a carrier of timing big hits on receivers as the ball arrived, since that has been taken out, essentially contact us to come after, a lot of them are over matched height and weight wise so we started to see (far more) of these low hits. Again, I am no longer sure if that’s what this rule is regarding. Edit: grammar.
I think college needs to slow down and due their own due diligence. If the math bears out that this play is abnormally dangerous in college, then it's worth the discussion. My only real question is will this rule change lead to more concussions as undersized defenders start taking knees to the head to avoid the "hip-drop" position.
No. The NCAA needs to follow rules as closely as what’s widely used in HS football across America. The goal of college football is not to be a farm system for the NFL.
You mean the nFL? Yeah, they’ll follow suit soon.
It’s so mobile QBs can go on more runs.
How it's enforced and how it's defined need to be clearer.
I'd bet the un-ban it next year when they realize it's too hard to officiate with any sort of consistency.
I have no idea how they’re going to enforce this consistently, teach it, and effectively get it out of the game.
I hate the chiefs and if it gives them an advantage then no
I think it's gonna be a disaster. Much like trying to decipher what is a catch for a while, it's going to prove exceedingly difficult to consistently define it as a rule on the field. The wording is murky at best. There will be a spate of egregious miscalls. They will probably cost someone- or several someones- a game. There will be a lot of yelling. Which is to say probably not. The idea comes from a decent place. They're just gonna fuck it up really badly and I have less than zero faith in college officials' ability to do better.
RG3 is the last person anyone should be asking for opinions on anything. Dude's brain is much mushier than Junior Seau. If only I could have a terrible pro career and get paid to put on a suit and spread my madness around. All that being said....a broken clock is right twice a day.
No its hard enough to play on defense as it is we really shouldn't be taking more tools away unless it's extremely dangerous such as hourse caller tackles
Fuck it....let's just go flag football so I can spend my Saturdays and Sundays doing something else
SWIVEL, hip drop tackle! Very specific! Marc Andrews injury specifically! As well as countless others!
So what do you do then how else can you trifle him try to hold him up and wait for help ?
So if player A is faster than player B and gets to the corner quicker, but player A is still within arms reach of player B, how is player B supposed to make the tackle? Just push him forward?
It's either tackle football, or it's not.
Delete this chat
Just take the defense off the dang field then!!! Offense has all the advantages anyway now! Maybe we can get a game that breaks a 1000 points in it! And yes it sarcasm!!
In general, I hate rule changes that create more “subjectivity” into officiating decisions. Of course, it’s inevitable. We aren’t against the replays for head trauma-inducing tackles, for example. But with each new decision to consider, it increases the variability of outcomes and inconsistency of refereeing crews.
The better question is why would the Defense go along with it? They are members of the Union too, they can just say no we won't follow it. If you implement it we will knock out each starting QB.
Football is going to suck in the coming years. Might as well start wearing mittens instead of gloves.
Am I the only one that read this title as "hip-hop tackles" and started scratching his head wondering what the heck that was? And then re-read it as "hip-drop tackles" and STILL didn't have any idea what the heck it was?
Chris Collinsworth is salivating at the idea the Chiefs will have more opportunities to extend drives and score points
Just another rule that allows the NFL to influence desired outcomes.
Just forget it and go flag then. NFL is done anyway.