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The NFL wants to ban the hip-drop tackle this offseason, Commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday at the league’s owners meetings in Irving, Texas.
A month after Ravens star tight end Mark Andrews suffered a reported cracked fibula and ankle ligament injury that could be season ending, Goodell and another top league official, Executive Vice President of Football Troy Vincent, said they want it stopped.
“I think we all should work to get that out of the game,” Goodell said Wednesday. “You see it escalated the number of times it occurred this season. The injuries could be very devastating. We saw that also. It’s not just happening at the NFL level; it’s happening at other levels. It’s something that we have to work very hard to get that removed this spring.”
Along with Andrews, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith and Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill have been injured by hip-drop tackles, a technique by which a defender grabs a ball carrier and throws all of his weight onto the runner’s lower body, pulling him to the ground. According to NFL officials, the injury rate for hip-drop tackles is 25 times higher than that for other tackles.
“I think we have to [ban it] now,” Vincent said.
When league officials pointed out the tackle, some teams did not know what it was or said they were not teaching it, Vincent said.
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“One thing we can do today is define what that is,” he said. “It is to grip; it’s to rotate and drop. Those three things show up on that play, and it’s a gruesome play.”
After Andrews left the Ravens’ win over the Cincinnati Bengals with the injury, teammates were split on whether hip-drop tackles should be outlawed. Coach John Harbaugh declined to take a public stance, deferring to the NFL’s Competition Committee, which was scheduled to meet Thursday.
“Whatever they decide to do, at whatever point in time, you just abide by it, and you say, ‘Hey, it’s what’s best,” he said last month. “Then, in the offseason, I’m sure there will be a debate, and it will be voted on and all that. Right now, we’re just trying to get ready for the next game.”
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Jonas Shaffer is a Ravens beat writer for The Baltimore Banner. He previously covered the Ravens for The Baltimore Sun. Shaffer graduated from the University of Maryland and grew up in Silver Spring.
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