NFL meeting to ban hip drop tackles.. (Update: Now banned)

SonOfNOLA said

These kind of tackles commonly roll up players’ legs and ankles more than people think. It’s usually season ending injuries or automatic significant time missed. I can see why it’s banned. I saw it happen to Mark Andrews. It’s happens to RBs a lot. I think I remember seeing someone try to bring Olave down with a hip drop.

I understand the “how should they tackle” side. Defenders should also rely on actual sound tackling technique. Instead of pulling/twisting a player’s upper body and putting their weight on to ballcarriers’ lower body areas prone to injury. They’re very aware of what they’re doing. They get desperate to bring a player down in extreme ways when the ballcarrier’s gotten past them instead of actually tackling or grabbing the runner’s legs at that point.

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I agree with the need to stop types of tackles that hurt players and that true hip drop tackles should be eliminated, but I think the way the NFL rule is written is too broad and open to interpretations that will result in inconsistent application that isn't likely to make the players any safer. And I don't think making it a foul is likely to reduce the number of times it happens when it's often a very quick decision or a moment of desperation. Fines are just as likely or more likely to change how players tackle.

Beyond that, I looked at the tackle that hurt Mark Andrews and I have a hard time seeing that as a hip drop tackle. Yes he landed on his legs and yes he pulled him down, but he didn't wrap around him to intentionally use his weight to bring him down. His momentum in making the tackle just resulted in him landing on his legs. I'm just not sure how you penalize that or get that out of the game. The stuff you see in the Rugby video above seems to be clearly hip drop tackles that should be outlawed, but I don't see the Mark Andrews tackle as the same thing.