(NEXSTAR) – A National Football League tackling style blamed for a number of player injuries in recent years has people calling for the league to crack down on the so called “hip-drop” tackle.
Some rugby leagues have been trying for years to eliminate the controversial move, which can lead to season-ending ankle and knee injuries.
“What’s happening on the hip-drop is the defender is encircling tackling the runner and then swinging their weight and falling on the side of their leg, which is their ankle or their knee,” Rich McKay, the chairman of the NFL’s competition committee, told the Associated Press last month.
“When they use that tactic, you can see why they do, because it can be a smaller man against a bigger man and they’re trying to get that person down because that’s the object of the game. But when they do it, the runner becomes defenseless. They can’t kick their way out from under. And that’s the problem. That’s where the injury occurs. You see the ankle get trapped underneath the weight of the defender.”
The tackle was thrust back into the spotlight during a recent Thursday showdown between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals.
Ravens star tight end Mark Andrews caught the ball and was running for the end zone when Bengals defender caught him from behind, falling onto the back of Andrew’s left ankle, which folded outward under the pressure. Immediately after the play Andrews could be seen writhing in agony on the ground.
The tackle left Andrews with a cracked fibula and ankle ligament injury, according to NFL Network, and prompted calls for the league to ban the tackle.
Defensive players, who have had to adjust to a number of safety measures penalizing play deemed unsafe in recent years, don’t all agree with hip-drop opponents.
Ravens safety Marcus Williams, for instance, said in an interview that, while he felt terrible for Andrews, he wasn’t sure banning the hip-drop tackle was the answer and didn’t think there was malicious intent by the Bengals’ player.
“If we can’t tackle, at the end of the day we might as well play flag [football] because there’s no other way to bring these guys down. They’re 285, 275 [pounds] whatever the are, and we’re trying to get them down, so I don’t know what the league can do with that.”
Will the hip-drop tackle be banned?
At October’s league meetings, NFL executive Jeff Miller said that the hip-drop tackle boosts the risk of injury by 25 times that of a standard tackle.
“It is an unforgiving behavior and one that we need to try to define and get out of the game,” Miller said at the league meetings.
The league made the horse-collar tackle illegal several years ago because a defender’s body weight ends up on the legs of the ball carrier, enhancing risk of injury. Rich McKay, the chairman of the NFL’s competition committee, called the hip-drop tackle a “cousin” of the horse collar.
While the league has said it will review the hip-drop tackle during the offseason, one source told USA Today that action could come as early as this season.
The source, who did not want to be identified, said that at least one member of the NFL’s competition committee has suggested taking action and instituting a rule now, during the season, to ban the tackling style.
If the NFL does make the highly unusual mid-season rule change, it could potentially save the seasons – and possibly the careers – of multiple players.
“To quantify it for you, we see an injury more or less every week in the regular season on the hip-drop,” Miller said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.