The NFL has embarked on a “righteous” crusade to remove “hip-drop tackles” from the professional game. And come hell or high water, league higher-ups will do everything in their power to manifest a ban.
Even ignoring what people most affected are saying.
On Wednesday, the NFL Players Association released a strong statement concerning the league competition committee’s steadfast fervor in excising the hip-drop tackle. While noting that the players appreciate any edicts that seemingly try to improve their safety, the NFLPA maintains they believe a hip-drop tackle ban is too confusing and too broadly-interpreted for themselves, coaches, referees, and fans.
Even for an imperfect union like the NFLPA, you’d have to try really hard to find a loophole in a statement that effectively represents the wishes of players. In fact, you’d probably have to gloss over its language entirely to diminish what it said.
Well, about that:
Our statement on the swivel hip-drop tackle. pic.twitter.com/8mzhjtPgKu
— NFLPA (@NFLPA) March 20, 2024
On Thursday, according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent had thoughts about the NFLPA’s feedback on a proposed hip-drop tackle ban.
To say a league stooge like Vincent was paying thinly-veiled, patronizing lip service to active players would be an understatement. It’d be akin to noting that grass is green, water is wet, and the caffeine in coffee helps jolt people awake in the morning:
NFL's Troy Vincent says they always welcome player feedback and they've discussed the hip-drop tackle with some of the game's legends but "this is something we have to remove. The intent is not to throw more flags. The intent is to remove that style of play." https://t.co/E3EA5bqc7e
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) March 21, 2024
I’m aghast, and I don’t even know where to truly begin.
Vincent’s response is what someone sends as a cookie-cutter professional email for the bare minimum necessary to ensure a paycheck is still directly deposited into their bank account. Noting that you “welcome player feedback” and that you’ve spoken to (unnamed and unspecified) legends of the game only to return back to a diatribe about hip-drops being a “style of play” that needs to go is insulting.
It’s essentially Vincent and the league saying, “We see you, we hear you, but we still don’t care.”
It’s hard to pinpoint why the league is hellbent on, once again, baking in a layer of confusion over an issue that doesn’t appear to be that big of a problem. (And, quite honestly, it is most often incidental.)
When it says that the injury rate is 20-25 percent higher on hip-drops compared to other tackles, where is that data coming from? Why is that being cited out of the blue as a data point that is empirical and easily understood? Who conducted the study? How were hip-drop tackles defined? Can you please show me any aspect of your work? We shouldn’t have to ask a multi-billion dollar football empire a common question that a fifth-grade math teacher asks of a 10-year-old child. But here we are.
When the league says that 105 tackles of the 20,000 reviewed over the last two seasons were of a hip-drop variety, that doesn’t demonstrate this being something that must be addressed. For you math majors out there, 105 tackles of 20,000 is just over half a single percentage point. Half … of a single … percentage point. Everyone hold onto your butts. A play that almost never happens must be legislated out of the game!
Again, why is this a grand problem the NFL needs to usher in while plugging in its ears, saying “la-la-la-la-la-la,” and pretending the players aren’t expressing dismay?
I have a good, very educated guess.
Banning the hip drop isn’t about improving player safety at all. It’s about the league finding another avenue to streamline and protect its financial investment in offensive players. Even if that comes at the expense of the quality of the game or what the players themselves actually desire, the NFL wants to eliminate all contingencies to protect its broadcast, fantasy, and betting money — the talented offensive players who light up NFL RedZone every Sunday. I can think of many, much more efficient ways to improve NFL player safety — as much as one feasibly can in a brutal sport like football — before I ever even entertain the subject of hip-drop tackles. That should tell you everything you need to know.
This is virtually the league’s skill-player version of the old rule that bans hits on quarterbacks below the knee. And, if passed, it will be applied in the same byzantine manner. The NFL doesn’t care that defenders will struggle to adjust. You either eat the flag and fine in a situation that often isn’t even in your control, or you simply can’t be part of the fun anymore. Because it’s not about the defense or sanctity of the sport, and it never was.
I vehemently disagree with this clear business decision. But I’d at least have some measure of respect for the NFL if it didn’t pretend that banning the hip-drop tackle was about anything but protecting a fraction of its financial coffers.
