NFL meeting to ban hip drop tackles.. (Update: Now banned) (2 Viewers)

[St. Widge]

GOOD!!!!!!!

That type of move is NOT tackling!!! It's a lazy shortcut to bring the ball carrier down by any means necessary. The over reaction to this decision is just that. Hip drop tackles are not a common occurrence during a NFL game, you may see one happen out of 16 games played. The players are not coached to perform this move and it's great that the NFL have moved to rid this RARE move from the game before it became commonplace.

It's not RARE according to the NFL. The NFL, through Rich McCay, says it happened 230 times last year which is nearly one per regular season game (Technically .84 per regular season game). If it were one every 16 games then there would only have been 1 per week instead of essentially 1 every game.

Which should tell you that the NFL thinks it happens much more often then you do which likely means their definition of a hip drop tackle is much broader than your definition. The NFL does think it's common which means that the way they see the rule, they are banning perfectly reasonable tackles instead of just atual hip drop tackles.

 

[saintmike23]

I wonder how they will word it. But it needs to be penalized only if the defender lands on the legs of the ball carrier. That’s where the injuries occur. Unless I’m mistaken.

 

[St. Widge]

I wonder how they will word it. But it needs to be penalized only if the defender lands on the legs of the ball carrier. That’s where the injuries occur. Unless I’m mistaken.

This is apparently the language:

 

[kcirdor]

isn't that how Jeff Blake got hurt?

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

It's not RARE according to the NFL. The NFL, through Rich McCay, says it happened 230 times last year which is nearly one per regular season game (Technically .84 per regular season game). If it were one every 16 games then there would only have been 1 per week instead of essentially 1 every game.

Which should tell you that the NFL thinks it happens much more often then you do which likely means their definition of a hip drop tackle is much broader than your definition. The NFL does think it's common which means that the way they see the rule, they are banning perfectly reasonable tackles instead of just atual hip drop tackles.

Once per game is still a rare occurrence considering how many tackles happen per game, I was just guessing based on how many times I've seen it during a season. I believe them when they are saying it happens more frequently than I thought. They are about two years too late on addressing the problem though.

 

[St. Widge]

Once per game is still a rare occurrence considering how many tackles happen per game, I was just guessing based on how many times I've seen it during a season. I believe them when they are saying it happens more frequently than I thought. They are about two years too late on addressing the problem though.

You just said it only happened once every 16 games. If that is all you saw it how could it be that real hip drop tackles happen once per game? The only logical explanation is that the NFL's definition is way overbroad.

 

[SigFreudianSlip]

 

[St. Geezy]

It's not RARE according to the NFL. The NFL, through Rich McCay, says it happened 230 times last year which is nearly one per regular season game (Technically .84 per regular season game). If it were one every 16 games then there would only have been 1 per week instead of essentially 1 every game.

Which should tell you that the NFL thinks it happens much more often then you do which likely means their definition of a hip drop tackle is much broader than your definition. The NFL does think it's common which means that the way they see the rule, they are banning perfectly reasonable tackles instead of just atual hip drop tackles.

Less than one single tackle occurrence per game isn’t “rare” to you?

 

[St. Geezy]

I feel like a lot of you have never touched a football.

Just saying….

Not sure which side you’re admonishing here, but I both played and coached ball, and the idea of simply wrapping someone’s legs up without subsequently then twisting/contouring myself and lunging the full weight of my body into his knees and ankles isn’t that hard to fathom nor is it that hard to coach out of the relatively few guys that like to do it.

This technique is something that only recently came en vogue (a la when people suddenly started horse-collaring in the late 90s/early 00s), it is rarely being used (.84 per game, which is a whole 60% increase from the previous year), and its legislation out of the game isn’t going to affect the quality of play to the degree many are acting like it will.

This feels like a classic case of monkey-see monkey-do unwarranted social media outrage, including by some of the players.

 

[St. Widge]

Less than one single tackle occurrence per game isn’t “rare” to you?

Not really. Once per game is a lot for a personal foul. How often do you see targeting? Blow to the head? Chop block? Horse collar? Not once per game.

I don't think this will ruin the game or anything and I think there are plenty of overreactions to it. But, I do think the NFL definition of a "hip drop tackle" is overly broad and vague. And that the fact that they saw 230 of them last year is evidence that it is overly broad and subject to too much subjective interpretation. I think it's going to lead to a lot of controversial game changing calls that end up in replay review. But, that's likely a good thing to the NFL because controversial calls means people get more invested and talk about them for a week. It's more attention and media coverage for the NFL which is what they want anyway. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

But, because it is vague, over broad and subject to so much subjective interpretation, it's not going to help player safety because players won't know exactly what it is they are not supposed to do. It will stop the rare actual clearly hip drop tackles, but there will be many that it won't stop because the rule is not clear. And, like I said, if they really cared about player safety they would just fine people for things instead of making it a penalty that can change games. They do it all the time with things like uniform violations and it works to stop that except for rare occasions. But, they would rather this vague foul be part of the game so the controversy becomes part of the media coverage, they get extra publicity, and it's another public statement that they care about player safety when they don't.

I mean, if it was really an issue for player safety wouldn't you expect the NFLPA to be in favor of the rule? Why would they be against it?

 

[St. Geezy]

Not really. Once per game is a lot for a personal foul. How often do you see targeting? Blow to the head? Chop block? Horse collar? Not once per game.

I don't think this will ruin the game or anything and I think there are plenty of overreactions to it. But, I do think the NFL definition of a "hip drop tackle" is overly broad and vague. And that the fact that they saw 230 of them last year is evidence that it is overly broad and subject to too much subjective interpretation. I think it's going to lead to a lot of controversial game changing calls that end up in replay review. But, that's likely a good thing to the NFL because controversial calls means people get more invested and talk about them for a week. It's more attention and media coverage for the NFL which is what they want anyway. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

But, because it is vague, over broad and subject to so much subjective interpretation, it's not going to help player safety because players won't know exactly what it is they are not supposed to do. It will stop the rare actual clearly hip drop tackles, but there will be many that it won't stop because the rule is not clear. And, like I said, if they really cared about player safety they would just fine people for things instead of making it a penalty that can change games. They do it all the time with things like uniform violations and it works to stop that except for rare occasions. But, they would rather this vague foul be part of the game so the controversy becomes part of the media coverage, they get extra publicity, and it's another public statement that they care about player safety when they don't.

I mean, if it was really an issue for player safety wouldn't you expect the NFLPA to be in favor of the rule? Why would they be against it?

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 as far as the rule interpretations and executions; that is something we are going to have to wait and see on, and I prefer not to debate/defend against hypotheticals...my only issue is that I just don't see the actual games being impacted as much as people say, from a data standpoint. 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.

 

[St. Widge]

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.

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.

 

[Kegger]

Not really. Once per game is a lot for a personal foul. How often do you see targeting? Blow to the head? Chop block? Horse collar? Not once per game.

How often were they happening when there was no rule against them?

 

[St. Widge]

How often were they happening when there was no rule against them?

I don't have numbers, but I don't recall any of those things being common before the rule changes.

But, honestly, artificial turf causes more lower leg and head injuries than any of the things they have outlawed, with the possible exception of targeting, and they won't do anything about that because of money.

 

[Kegger]

But, honestly, artificial turf causes more lower leg and head injuries than any of the things they have outlawed, with the possible exception of targeting, and they won't do anything about that because of money.

Agreed with ya on that one