ORLANDO, Fla. — Kenyan Drake sounded off on social media Monday after the NFL banned the swivel hip-drop tackle, a play he’s been trying to get outlawed for years. The veteran running back suffered a season-ending injury in 2021 after being dragged down by the now-illegal tackle.
i don’t care about popular opinion. i lost my right ankle and a quarter of the ‘21 season to this type of tackle. something had to give and im glad it’s not anybody legs/ankles anymore https://t.co/FkXqdW6fKm
— Kenyan Drake™ (@KDx32) March 25, 2024
Drake is one of many NFL players who voiced their opinions about the controversial hip-drop tackle ban. The 30-year-old, who is not currently with an NFL team, missed the Las Vegas Raiders’ final five regular-season games and their playoff game in 2021 due to a broken ankle.
The NFL now plans to legislate swivel hip-drop tackling out of the game, noting that it is one of the most dangerous plays in football. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday the league met with the NFL Players Association and the competition committee in Indianapolis about the new rule, and although the NFLPA pushed back on it, the ban was voted on and approved.
Our statement on the swivel hip-drop tackle. pic.twitter.com/8mzhjtPgKu
— NFLPA (@NFLPA) March 20, 2024
“Listen, it’s a play that has a 20-times injury factor,” Goodell said. “From that standpoint, you can’t allow that. We’ve been very effective and very clear when we see a technique that’s gonna increase the safety of our players, particularly at that kind of rate. I’m not sure we’ve had anything at that kind of rate.”
According to the new rule, not all hip-drop tackles are banned, just those when a tackler:
• grabs a runner with both hands/arms while attempting to make a tackle;
• “unweights himself by swiveling and dropping his hips and/or lower body”;
• and then lands on and traps the runner’s leg(s) at or below the knee.
If all three criteria are met, that means a swivel hip-drop tackle was deployed, and officials will penalize the offender’s team 15 yards and award an automatic first down. The penalty will not be reviewable or able to be challenged, with the official deciding in real time if a tackle is legal or illegal.
“The hip-swivel (ban) is a stupid rule,” Indianapolis Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin said on his podcast, “The Trenches Show.” “The explanation is dumb. Every game this whole season, that play has happened less than 100 times. … My bigger issue is: Why does every year the NFL feel like they gotta change the rules? You keep tweaking and maneuvering and shifting the game, you’re gonna eventually come out with something that’s unrecognizable.”
NFL executive Jeff Miller noted that the swivel hip-drop tackle was actually used 230 times last year. That frequency came out to a little less than one per game (272 games in a regular season) and resulted in 15 players, including star Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews, missing at least one game due to injury.
Furthermore, the 230 swivel hip-drop tackles in 2023 were up roughly 65 percent from 2022, according to Miller, making it even more of a priority to be removed from competition.
Franklin was far from the only NFL defender to be upset by the ban. Many voiced their feelings on social media, believing they’ve been put at yet another disadvantage in a league that is pro-offense and pro-scoring. They say they can’t hit high to protect offensive players and themselves from concussions. Some feel like they can hardly hit quarterbacks at all with the way the roughing-the-passer penalty has been amended over the years. And now they’ve lost another way to bring an offensive player to the ground with the elimination of the swivel hip-drop tackle.
Just fast forward to the belts with flags on them… https://t.co/yToh5XKVMS
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) March 25, 2024
New York Giants co-owner and competition committee chairman John Mara acknowledged the defensive players’ frustrations. However, he pointed to other rule changes throughout the years, such as banning horse-collar tackles and helmet-to-helmet hits, which have made competition safer. He doesn’t think the swivel hip-drop ban will be any different in the long run.
“It was a tactic that we had to get out of the game,” Mara told NFL Network. “The injuries were too severe, and there were too many of them. My experience being on the competition committee, the players have never been happy with a lot of the safety-inspired rule changes. They always feel like it makes the defensive players’ jobs that much tougher — and it does. But at the end of the day, it’s going to protect guys from injuries. … These players are the greatest athletes in the world, and every time there is a rules change, they adapt.”
“It’s for their own good,” added Chicago Bears chairman George McCaskey. “It’s for their own safety. We’re confident they will adjust their game to adapt to the rules.”
Goodell added that the onus to catch and enforce the swivel hip-drop tackle ban won’t fall solely on officials during games. The NFL plans to review every play of every game, as it always does, and Goodell said players could potentially be fined afterward even if a swivel hip-drop tackle isn’t called during a game.
“The education piece is going to be critical,” Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott said when asked about how the new rule will be legislated. “I’m one who feels that is going to be a challenge to officiate it, but the league has done things like this before. People adjust. You’ve got to remove those plays where a leg is trapped.”
Atlanta Falcons CEO Rich McKay, another competition committee chairman, said teams will receive videos explaining the differences between a legal hip-drop tackle and the now-banned swivel hip-drop tackle. He also vehemently disagreed with the notion that this new rule is “making the game softer.”
Raiders coach and former NFL linebacker Antonio Pierce doesn’t believe the swivel hip-drop tackle is being taught, but rather that it’s a split-second byproduct of a defender trying to bring a player down. The speed of the game will inevitably lead to some gray areas as players and officials adjust, though Colts GM Chris Ballard and Bears coach Matt Eberflus think how well teams recalibrate will ultimately come down to their staffs reinforcing the new rule and how to properly tackle.
“In 1995, we did a study when I was at the University of Toledo of: What makes a good tackle?” Eberflus said. “We came up with this thing called the hamstring tackle. I’ve been using that since ’95. To me, it’s pretty easy. I don’t have to change or adjust. We’ve never taught (the swivel hip-drop tackle). We hit with the top of our pads. Now, we had to adjust a little bit when they took the head out of the game. … But it’s been the same (thing) that we’ve done since ’95.”
Scoop City Newsletter
Free, daily NFL updates direct to your inbox. Sign up
Free, daily NFL updates direct to your inbox. Sign up
Buy
— The Athletic’s Tashan Reed, Kevin Fishbain, Tim Graham and Adam Jahns contributed to this report.
GO DEEPER
Making sense of NFL’s new kickoff rule and what it means for next season
(Photo of Kenyan Drake: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
2024-03-27 22:47:08
#Safe #stupid #NFL #stakeholders #defend #condemn #controversial #hipdrop #tackle #ban
