The National Football League (NFL) looks very different today compared to 20 years ago, with rules, equipment, most valued positions, and even contracts looking glaringly different than the early 2000s. Often this leads to a cultural shift where the older generation of fans and players refers to the current NFL as “soft”. That is not necessarily true, despite dozens of rule changes NFL players today still get injured a lot. Concussions are a particular problem in the league that the NFL has taken steps to address by improving helmets, player monitoring, and concussion protocol procedures. The motivation behind these changes is to protect the players after they leave the league, in an effort to cut down on Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) cases, and severely deteriorating mental health in many players. Similarly, the various kickoff rule changes have been designed to protect the kick returner from being figuratively killed by 10 special teamers and the opposing kicker, while also making the product more exciting by reinvigorating kickoffs.
The banning of the hip-drop tackle is not a cut-and-dry player safety issue in necessarily the same way. Hip-drop tackles can lead to injuries for offensive players, and in this last season, there were a few prominent examples particularly done by Bengals linebacker (LB) Logan Wilson. Defensive players have had struggles with tackling offensive players for years, with today’s build of power running back, strong wide receiver, and massive tight-end giving offenses a clear size and often weight advantage over small LBs, or Cornerbacks (CB), or even undersized hard hitting Safeties. The NFL initially banned Horse Collar tackles a few years ago, which is often a last-ditch effort for an undersized defensive player to take down a bigger guy, and taking away hip-drop tackles will make it even harder to stop a potent offense. The outcry from many defensive players across the league helps show this is not seen as a positive decision by the players. Furthermore, the rate of defensive player injuries has been increasing during tackle attempts, and will likely now increase even more as more players are forced to make a last-ditch tackle attempt against a much bigger force.
Seeing the owners pass banning the hip-drop tackle as a unanimous decision, when other things that injure players way more like the usage of turf are constantly blocked, shows it’s not just about player safety. The motive for owners voting is always about money, and the fact of the game is offenses make money. Another buzzing story is the NFL is worried that offenses aren’t scoring at a high enough rate, prompting many of the current new rule sets. Casual fans love a high-scoring offense, and watching two quarterbacks engage in a shootout. Nowadays there are fewer and fewer fundamentalists who truly value defense over everything, the way many coaches value offense over everything.
At the core of an offense is receiving targets being healthy, and the hip-drop tackles risk offensive player safety at the benefit of the defensive players. But in many ways that averaged out the natural advantage offensive players have from a physics sense where they have already built up momentum by the time they reach the defense. Furthermore, offensive players have a variety of skill moves including jukes, spin moves, stiff arms, and hurdles that can injure defensive players.
Offensive players also tend to get away with many more blatant holds, especially from massive 6’5’’ or taller, 250-300 pound offensive line players down the field on a run play, literally dragging 5’8’’ 200-pound cornerbacks to the ground. The hip-drop tackle served as one of the last tools to balance the injury risk for offensive and defensive players, acknowledging that offensive players have 100 tools that can injure a defensive player, but that defensive players can feel free to utilize physics to ensure that they can still make a play.
I think that improving player safety is a great thing, and banning the hip-drop tackle will hopefully help save a lot of unnecessary injuries. At the same time the NFL owners need to stop pretending to care about player safety, and if they do they better ban turf and switch to real grass, and start brainstorming how to help protect defensive players, because I highly doubt they are just going to stand there and let offensive players run by. This means they will start using tackle attempts that are more dangerous, likely risking severe rotator cuff injuries from taking down someone way bigger than themselves.
This last part is pure speculation, but with the banning of the hip-drop tackle, you have to wonder if is this the end of the 3-4 and 4-3 base defensive formations. Both of these formations center around crowding the line of scrimmage and the middle zones to stop the play. If teams are barred from tackling someone from behind, maybe NFL teams will start dropping LBs and Safeties deeper, allowing running plays to accrue more average yards, but giving their guys more of a chance to stop touchdowns head-on. Essentially using some variation of a prevent defense, allowing a team to get yards, but locking down the endzone. Will this happen? I can’t say for sure, but this could be the final nail in the coffin for defensive players being able to do their job.
Player safety is important, and the game should be focused on reducing unneeded injuries. Therefore the NFL should ban turf, and cut down on the stupidest and worst injuries, ones that impact the ACL and the Achilles. For all we know maybe hip-drop tackles would not even cause as many injuries if players were falling onto natural grass, rather than trashy cheap turf. If the owners can put it in their stadiums for the World Cup, they can put it in every day of the week for games, and practices. No time for hypocrisy NFL owners, and don’t give us the “you can’t afford it” excuse, we all know you’re billionaires.
Image Credits: ESPN
