The hip-drop tackle is officially illegal.
Owners banned the hip-drop tackle on Monday morning during the Annual League Meeting in Orlando, Fla., the league announced.
The NFL's Competition Committee was unanimous in their voice that the tackle was one the league wanted out of the game. Owners agreed.
The official rule is as follows:
ARTICLE 18. HIP-DROP TACKLE. 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.
Penalty: For a Hip-Drop Tackle: Loss of 15 yards and an automatic first down.
Last week, as the NFLPA spoke out against banning the hip-drop tackle, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent combatted the resistance, noting it was something the league wanted "to get out of the game."
"The greatest asset for any athlete is durability and availability," Vincent said at the time. "When you have a play that has a 20-25 times the injury rate, it doesn't allow you to fulfill your dreams."
That high injury rate keyed discussions surrounding the hip-drop tackle and led the league to take action.
The decision makes life more difficult for defenders, many of whom decried the ban as a further obstacle to their work.
"For me, no, none whatsoever," NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said Monday when asked if there were any unintended consequences they've tried to troubleshoot with the new rule. "Because this isn't the elimination of hip-drop, this is an elimination of a swivel technique that doesn't get used very often. When it is used, it is incredibly injurious to the runner -- the runner is purely defenseless. I've heard defenders say before and I hear them -- 'Hey, you're putting me in a really tough spot, you're saying I can't hit here and what do I do?' My response has as always been, 'Well, you can't do that.' That's just because the guy you're hitting is defenseless, has no way to protect himself. So, we've got to protect him. You've got to come up with other ways and you know what, they do. Yes, we outlawed the hip-drop, but what you may think are the drag-from-behind where he falls on the – that's still a tackle. This is only that tackle where the player is lifting themselves in the air and then falling on the legs."
Expect more fines than flags in the first season of the ban as the league works with coaches on techniques that will make the game safer.
"Do we have a problem? " McKay said. "This will be a hard one to call on the field, you have to see every element of it. We want to make it a rule so we can deal on the discipline during the week."
The NFL approved two other rule changes:
- Amends Rule 15, Section 1, Article 1, changing the challenge rule. Whereas previously, coaches needed to get each of their first two challenges correct to get a third, they simply must get one correct to get another shot at dropping the red flag.
- Amends Rule 14, Section 5, Article 2, changing the enforcement of a major foul by the offense prior to a change of possession in a situation where both teams have committed fouls.
According to McKay, the league did not vote on the kickoff rule change proposal on Monday morning, though a vote can still be held on Tuesday.
