NFL likely banning hip-drop tackle

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Yeah, of course you can’t ban everything. But there are specific plays that are more dangerous than others and hip drops are something like 20x more likely to cause injury. Horse collars are rightfully banned. Things like chop blocks, targeting, roughing the passer… as much as we hate their overenforcement, those types of rules by and large are good for the game.

And these injuries have been impactful. We’re talking playoff players like dak, tyreek, pollard, Andrews.

I agree there is a right way to do this. And I’m guessing the league will see that this enforcement is way too broad. The nfl as with all other restrictions that supposedly were going to end the league always finds ways to adapt. Create a clearer and much more limited definition, teach way better tackling technique and adapt from there.

Dak isn't a great QB. He's pretty freaking average. He just plays for a very visible organization. If he was playing for LAC or CAR, no one would give two shits about that guy. Hell, he might be out of the league a long time ago in those situations.

And while I could go on about the way these rules are enforced, the problem is a lot deeper than that, imo.

OL play is pretty mediocre across the league, probably due in large part to the lack of real padded practices/the reduction of preseason games/teams being unwilling to play starters in those preseason games.

And then there's the simple fact that the NFL has been cooking the rules for years now to allow mediocre QBs to be starters. QBs that can't read defensive alignments pre-snap so consequently don't make proper protection adjustments (or just never do it at all), that aren't big enough to play in the NFL, or just throw their receivers into dangerous situations on a weekly basis.

Point being, it's the quality of play that's the bigger issue when it comes to injuries, not how defenders are tackling.

Making it harder for defenses to play isn't going to fix things. Making QBs, receivers and OLs better at their jobs would do more to protect players, imo.