The NFL has two massive priorities when it comes to how games unfold.
First, it wants to protect the players on the field knowing injuries to major stars are a blow to everything the league does well. Second, it wants to ensure the highest quality product on the field, an unimpeachable competition where games are decided by talent, effort and design unencumbered by outside forces aside from weather and luck.
By banning the hip-drop tackle, NFL owners have put these two goals at odds with each other.
All 32 owners voted in favor of making the tackle — defined as when a player wraps up a ballcarrier, then “unweights himself by swiveling or dropping his hips and/or lower body, landing on or trapping the runner’s leg(s) at or below the knee” — a 15-yard penalty. It’s a move that will make the field a little safer for running backs and a lot messier for officials.
Full language on the new rules. pic.twitter.com/mqi2OK8aQo
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) March 25, 2024
The problem here isn’t that players will be safer, obviously. It’s that the league is banning a play that looks an awful lot like football as we know it. It doesn’t just take away a vital arrow in defenders’ quivers; it creates another opportunity for an umpire or line judge to change the outcome of a game with a badly timed flag and a free first down.
While the NFL was quick to point out this applies only to “swivel” hip-drop tackles, the wording of the rule and the video shown by the league suggest there’s a lot more ambiguity to the call than sources suggest.
Here’s the video the NFL just showed in a press conference of what are now banned swivel hip-drop tackles (with NFL executive Jeff Miller speaking in the background). pic.twitter.com/Y4H8h6pQkW
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) March 25, 2024
If you want an example of just how damaging a subjective call designed to make players safer can be, look no further than the NFL’s roughing the passer rule. While the policy itself is a common sense addition to protect the most important player in the game from egregious hits, amendments have given officials more and more to consider when a quarterback hits the turf.
Aaron Rodgers’ broken collarbone in 2017 gave way to the rule that prevents defenders from landing on QBs with their body weight. That bred a subjective call that can lead to drive-extending flags on unavoidable plays that look one hell of a lot like a game based on collisons played as safely as it can be:
refs called this roughing the passer on 3rd down and i genuinely do not know what Grady Jarrett could have done differently pic.twitter.com/VX6i0UpJiL
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 9, 2022
Instead of fourth down and a punt back to an Atlanta Falcons team that trailed 21-15 with 3:03 to play, that ludicrous call gave Tampa Bay the latitude to grind out the clock for a home win. That year, the 8-9 Buccaneers topped the NFC South above the 7-10 Falcons… who could have been division champions if not for the nonsense above.
This is not an isolated incident. The last five seasons alone have been littered with moments where teams were gifted 15 yards and extended drives because of botched calls or, as is the case entirely too often, calls that are correct to the letter of the law but not the spirit.
Chris Jones called for questionable roughing the passer call pic.twitter.com/57BUnNHssZ
— Lamar Jackson Playaction (@NoContxtNFL) January 21, 2019
The language attached to the hip-drop ban will only invite more of these game- and potentially season-changing calls. This is not a horse collar tackle, where intent is clear the moment force is applied to yank a player backwards from above the nameplate or a facemask where, yep, you know it when you see it. How will officials delineate between a hip-drop performed with intent and a tackle where two players legs got tangled up and a linebacker failed to defy the laws of physics and fell backward and earthbound to, you know, do his job?
The rule should help avoid a few injuries during the season, which is great. It may also have a chilling effect on tacklers, leading to higher scores and more record-setting performances, which would be a side benefit the NFL could appreciate. But it will be infuriating on the field when a routine tackle on third down suddenly breathes new life into a seemingly defeated opponent. Or when a defender has a player wrapped up, but can’t corral him to the ground in front of the first down marker in fear of giving up significant penalty yardage.
In an effort to protect players, the league has hamstrung its defensive stars while finding a new way for officials to clog up and impact the end of games. 2024 will be the backdrop to a myriad of bad flags, particularly early in the season as referees work out the kinks in the rulebook, and a rising tide of “rigged” calls from the dorks lurking in gambling Twitter’s darkest corners and on bad AM radio shows.
It’s a self-inflicted wound. It’s a call that will make things better for runners and worse for the game. And there’s a good chance we just end up back here next year, discussing changes to the hip-drop ban after a disastrous 2024 implementation.
