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

St. Geezy said

There were 230 last year, which is a very small number IMO, and there were only about 140 the previous year. This is a sudden trend that they're trying to nip out early.

I can't speak to the officiating part of it...my only issue is that I just don't see the actual games being impacted as much as people say. People here and elsewhere are talking about how impossible it is going to be to play defense, how suddenly it will not be possible to tackle Derrick Henry from behind, etc., and that just isn't the case when 99% of the time, players are just fine using other tackling techniques.

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I agree it won't have a huge impact and won't really change the game. I just think it also won't really help player safety in any significant way. But, despite a large number of posts on the topic, I'm not really particularly concerned about it. I do think that the refs will be likely to over correct based on the vague rule and we will see a lot of questionable calls for hip drop tackles that delay games with replay, but I don't think it will be that big of a deal in the end. I do think it could end up in a few big plays because big fast guys are hard to bring down, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Frankly, I'm just skeptical every time the NFL says they are doing something for player safety because they spent so many years ignoring/denying the problems with concussions and only now talk like they care about player safety due to lawsuits. That and if they really care about players getting knee and lower leg injuries, they would ban artificial turf. But, they won't do that because of money and the difficulty it would cause dome teams like the Saints.