Wagerallsports
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2018
- Messages
- 52,386
NFL could soon ban tackling technique it says creates ‘25 times’ the injury risk
Patrick Mahomes was injured in the playoffs with the so-called 'hip-drop' tackle
NEW YORK — Momentum is building for the NFL’s next on-field rule change.
The league’s competition committee, as well as its health and safety committee, are discussing how to respond to a tackling technique that their data says “results in about a 25 times rate of injury as a typical tackle,” executive vice president Jeff Miller said.
The league calls the tackle in question a “hip-drop tackle.” If that doesn’t clarify the play to you, you’re not alone. The league is trying to better define what does and doesn’t constitute it.
“It is an unforgiving behavior, and one that we need to try to define and get out of the game,” Miller said.
NFL competition committee chair Rich McKay called the tackle a “cousin” to the horse-collar tackle, which consists of grabbing the inside collar of the back or side of an opponent’s shoulder pads or jersey, or the jersey at the name plate or above, to pull a runner toward the ground. A hip-drop tackle similarly involves a tackler grabbing a ball carrier from behind and pulling him down in a manner that prevents self-defense.
“The defender’s encircling, tackling the runner, and then swinging their weight and falling on the side of their other leg, which is their ankle or their knee,” McKay said. “You can see what they do, because it can be a smaller man against a bigger man, and they’re trying to get the person down. That’s the object of the game.
“But when they do it, the runner becomes defenseless.”
NFL could soon ban tackling technique it says creates ‘25 times’ the injury risk
The league may soon start penalizing another tackling technique.
