The NFL bans the hip-drop tackle: A deep dive, and some thoughts

Will everything be fine or is the sky falling?

One controversial piece of news coming out of the NFL Annual League Meeting this year is the ban on hip-drop tackles for this season. With cries of “may as well just ban all tackles” and similar, it seems there’s quite a bit of outrage over this.

Even as the resident Buffalo Rumblings penalty nerd and often “ref apologist” for our website, I’ll admit there might be cause for concern. But on the other hand, let’s not reenact the plot of Chicken Little either. Let’s discuss…

What even is a hip-drop tackle?

I’ll be real candid with everyone here. Prior to this becoming a talking point about rules not that long ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what a hip-drop tackle is precisely. Further, the name alone didn’t tell me with any precision. It wasn’t until I read the league’s definition and saw examples that I felt like I knew exactly what they meant. I’m willing to wager many of you are/were in the same boat.

NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero shared the clip embedded below with examples of the technique, which is defined by the NFL as a tackle where the player “grabs the runner with both hands or wraps the runner with both arms; and unweights himself by swiveling and dropping his hips and/or lower body, landing on and trapping the runner’s leg(s) at or below the knee.”

The NFL hasn’t released the full text of the new rule but, assuming it’s in line with the definition above, there are a couple key items to highlight. The first is the use of the term “swivel” and the second is the idea of landing on the runner’s legs. For the nerds like me, the suggestion here is the NFL wants to prohibit players from creating additional force via torsion directly into the runner’s legs where injuries are common in the sport and frequently devastating.

The Cat is Fine

Alternative techniques

One of the more common questions I get when defending a penalty is “what else was the player supposed to do?” Sometimes there’s no good answer other than “strict liability” like you’ve seen me cite in the past. In this case, there are a lot of good answers.

As defined above, the hip-drop tackle has multiple elements. If all of the elements are necessary to be a hip-drop tackle, that opens the door wide. Note: More on looking for the elements of the tackle below in the section marked “The Cat is NOT Fine.” Assuming all elements need to be in play, defenders won’t be flagged unless they land on the runner’s legs. Dropping the hip itself does NOT appear to be banned, only a specific subset of outcomes once the hip has dropped (swiveling into the legs).

Further, even assuming players will be asked to avoid dropping hips altogether, there are plenty of options. Side-by-side tackles can still be used where the defender wraps up and pulls the runner sideways and off their feet would be a similar outcome.

Also, these tackles have not been banned:

• Diving tackles to take out the legs
• Non-diving tackles to the legs
• Gator-roll tackles (my guess for next technique to be banned)
• Shoulder tackles
• The side-by-side one I just mentioned
• Grabbing a player’s hair
• Wrap-up tackle and drop to your knees and use dead weight to assist
• Gang tackles
• Horse collar tackle to the QB while he’s in the pocket or a runner still in the tackle box

So if the question is “How is a 190-pound defensive back supposed to tackle a tight end?” There are actually plenty of answers.

Frequency

Piggybacking off the last point, is the idea that this technique isn’t used as often as people may think it is. In order for this technique to be in use, the defender needs to be in a situation where the tackle led them to a full wrap-up (both arms or hands), has foot placement that will allow for a sudden drop, and elects to do that. If you’ve seen the Bills’ defensive backs drop to their knees like I have while making a tackle, you’ve seen other options come into play. Incidentally, this rule change had unanimous support from the Competition Committee — of which Sean McDermott is now a part.

Essentially what I’m driving at here is that there are a large number of defined tackling techniques and a lot of reaction to this rule seems to suggest “hip-drop tackles are the same thing as tackles.” They’re not. It’s a subset — and since I’m being candid I don’t have a great handle on frequency of use and I’m betting most of you don’t either. The one thing I’ll put on record is that many plays in the NFL result in a non-hip-drop tackle, and there’s no reason to think this rule change is intended to be a constant interruption in the game.

The Cat is NOT Fine

Tolerance level

Over the years I’ve discussed the idea of tolerance level in calling flags. It’s important to note that the rule book itself spells out the tolerance level in many cases. As a foundation, it’s good to know that all rules contain multiple elements to be a flag. It’s “this” and “that” at the same time, usually.

This is important because a common reason for frustration is something like a missed offensive holding call. Per the rule book, refs are supposed to be able to see all elements and clearly — or the default is a no-call. Put differently, the tolerance level is specifically laid out for offensive holding that “when in doubt, it never happened.” As a result, the expectation is that there should be no-calls even on penalties we can see on replay.

To contrast, roughing the passer has the opposite tolerance level. If it might have happened, you throw the flag. So if you find yourself angry that the refs called a ticky-tack one or one that replay clearly shows was a clean call, it’s likely the refs called it per the defined tolerance level.

Why does this matter for the hip-drop tackle? We have no idea yet what the tolerance level will be. I noted above in frequency that there are a lot of non-hip-drop tackles in the NFL. I know I mentioned I don’t have a good rate on these, but I’m willing to bet that the opportunity for hip-drop tackles is more frequent than the opportunity for roughing the passer.

This matters because I am curious, and perhaps even a little worried, the league may have the tolerance level off on this. I’m personally 100% fine with this being handled more like offensive holding. If you didn’t see it clearly, it never happened. Calling it like roughing the passer, on the other hand, may be quite the issue.

Subjectivity

Overall I feel the league has a good amount of training for officials to iron out subjective wrinkles, but jumping off of the above there is some wiggle room here for subjectivity. It’s not a reason to worry yet, but poorly defining the technique they want to remove could lead to bad calls, which we all know fans will handle with tact and reason.

The Final Straw

You likely caught on to the cat reference above. As of right now I think of this as a Schrödinger’s Cat situation. Similar to the “lowering the head to initiate contact” flag from years ago, this one sounds like it’ll impact a voluminous number of plays. It’s possible too. A couple missteps on the rollout and this could go haywire quickly.

On the other hand, after the dust settled, lowering the head has been mostly a non-issue. For me, I plan on taking a deep breath and seeing how this plays out. The only thing I know for sure is the league tries to be careful with anything that might hurt ratings. My hunch is this will be controversial for a few weeks into the season and tweaked to become nothing more than easily ignored background noise, like most penalties.