NFL's bid to outlaw hip-drop tackles is slippery slope

The look on Logan Wilson’s face said it all.

His Cincinnati Bengals had just been whipped by the Ravens in Baltimore in front of a prime-time, Thursday night audience last November. Joe Burrow was injured during that season-turning 34-20 setback, and a pall was already settling over a locker room that clearly understood the Cincy quarterback wouldn’t be coming back until 2024.

Adding insult to injury – injuries – Wilson, a linebacker, was being approached by reporters, who were summarily shooed away by the Bengals public relations staff. They proceeded to clue him into the hubbub at his stall, and you could see Wilson’s eyes widen and jaw drop as he pointed to his chest with an increasingly quizzical expression.

Then he asked the question: “What’s a hip-drop tackle?”

It’s a query players and fans have been uttering with increasing frequency, but the volume – both the amount and noise – is likely about to escalate with the NFL trying to legislate hip-drop tackles out of the game.

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The league announced Wednesday that its competition committee is recommending an amended rule that bars the tackling, uh, technique. Players who employ it would incur a 15-yard penalty and automatic first down for the opponent. Owners will vote on it at next week’s league meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Here’s the specific language: “It is a foul if a player uses the following technique to bring a runner to the ground: (a) grabs the runner with both hands or wraps the runner with both arms; and (b) 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.”

Got it?

Wilson didn’t get it back in Week 11 when he seriously injured Ravens tight end Mark Andrews and temporarily hurt quarterback Lamar Jackson with tackles that would likely qualify as hip-drops, the one on Andrews probably a textbook example.

But here’s the rub: Players appear to be just about universally against the proposal. The NFL Players Association issued a statement Wednesday that read: “The players oppose any attempt by the NFL to implement a rule prohibiting a 'swivel hip-drop' tackle. While the NFLPA remains committed to improvements to our game with health and safety in mind, we cannot support a rule change that causes confusion for us as players, for coaches, for officials and especially, for fans. We call on the NFL, again, to reconsider implementing this rule."

NFL executive vice president of player health and safety Jeff Miller said at the annual scouting combine that the league had reviewed approximately 20,000 tackles from recent seasons and concluded that hip-drop tackles, particularly when defenders swivel around the hips of a ball carrier and land on his legs, result in an injury rate 20 to 25 times higher than a normal tackle. Miller also contended that the frequency of hip-drop tackles has been climbing significantly and that roughly one player per week was being hurt sufficiently that it “leads to lost time.”

Clearly, no one wants to see these guys get injured. And I don't want to be the "Get off my lawn" guy who just spews, "Put flags on them already."

But this seems like a slippery slope.

Yes, players and coaches usually adapt, as they did when the league vigorously began attempting to reduce concussive hits more than a decade ago. And while head injuries have dropped, many players continue to bemoan the fact that their brains may be better off, yet they pay a higher price (often literally) – and face shorter careers – when their legs are consequently targeted instead. Yet they also accept and celebrate the fact that football is an inherently risky sport, and that it already has become too hard for defensive players to do their jobs. They can't hit you high. They get hurdled or even knocked in the head themselves way too often if they go low. Now they have to think twice while attempting to wrap up around the waist of a ball carrier who's already trying to evade them while doubtless moving in a different direction?

“I think it really compromises the quality of the game on multiple levels,” the Washington Commanders’ Austin Ekeler said during Super Bowl week.

“One is the officials – it puts another gray area involving the officials. Was that a (hip-drop tackle)? Was it not? Was it a 15-yard penalty? And maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. And the fines associated with that as well, that’s another thing that we’re trying to figure out, how to make that system better.”

By the way, Ekeler plays running back and would enjoy more protection from the suggested rule than most of his peers. He’s also a vice president on the union’s leadership team, as informed as anyone regarding the issue and underscoring potential unintended consequences.

“Like, you’re on the goal line, and … you’re trying to pull someone back away from the goal line?” Ekeler asked.“So there’s multiple levels that I think that it compromises the quality of play. To the fact where I’m like, ‘Are they really serious about this?’ … (I)t just seems so ridiculous to me that this is something that they’re really putting on the table.

“I know especially my body gets twisted and turned, and I’m all over the place. And it’s because you kind of lay out, you’re at full speed, both guys are going with a lot of energy. Your body is gonna end up in different types of places and different types of situations.

“I think it’s honestly detrimental to the game that you try to move forward with it.”

The proposal also comes at a time when the players feel the league is being hypocritical about their safety, putting a spotlight on this issue but – so far – unwilling to push for uniform, high-quality grass playing fields at stadiums and training facilities when so many injuries have occurred on artificial surfaces. That issue will continue to fester and could be a sticking point in future collective bargaining negotiations.

As for the hip-drop? Enforcement, both its frequency and accuracy, could ultimately be the key.

Years ago, the NFL did away with dangerous horse-collar tackles – though those are fairly easy to see, define and adjudicate. As Ekeler notes, hip-drops are going to be a lot tougher to identify – and just wait until the late goal-line stand in a playoff game is nullified by a hip-drop flag when the infraction is far less clear than, say, Wilson's takedown of Andrews.

“A lot of rules that were put in place over the last 10-plus years that made the game a lot safer were big adjustments for players,” defensive lineman Calais Campbell, another NFLPA leader who just completed his 16th season, said at the Super Bowl.

“I feel like this particular rule change, I don’t understand how you can police it the right way and allow us to do our job.”

One that’s apparently about to become that much tougher.

Follow USA TODAY Sports' Nate Davis on X, formerly Twitter @ByNateDavis.