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Jamison Hensley, ESPN Staff Writer
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh strongly supported the NFL’s recent ban of the swivel hip-drop tackle, insisting defensive players won’t be put at a disadvantage with the removal of this technique.
Harbaugh has been an advocate of getting rid of the hip-drop tackle ever since Ravens tight end Mark Andrews was severely injured on this type of play, which occurs when a defender wraps up a ball carrier and rotates his hips, dropping onto ball carrier’s legs during the tackle.
On Nov. 16, Andrews was pulled to the ground by Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson on what the Ravens believe was a hip-drop tackle. Andrews suffered a fractured fibula and ligament damage and was sidelined for two months.
“When you drop down on the back of his legs, it’s a mass … and it’s 25 times more likely to have a serious injury,” Harbaugh said Tuesday at the Ravens’ pre-draft news conference. “So, it’s really a bad play, and it needed to be out. And guys are going to tackle just fine without the quote-unquote hip-drop tackle, because they tackled just fine without it for 100 years of football before that, when you never saw it, really.”
On March 25, NFL owners voted unanimously at the annual league meeting to remove the hip-drop tackle from the game. The violation will result in a 15-yard penalty if flagged in games, but Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, strongly implied last week that it is likely to be enforced similarly to the “use of helmet” rule, which typically leads to warning letters and fines in the week after a game rather than flags during play.
Last month, NFL executive Jeff Miller said the hip-drop tackle was used 230 times last season and resulted in 15 players missing time because of injuries. The NFL Players Association has adamantly opposed the rule.
“When did you ever hear about the hip-drop tackle until like two years ago, three years ago, right?” Harbaugh said. “That’s because it was discovered, probably, in rugby and started being executed as a standalone technique. It’s a three-part movement, [and] you’ve got to execute that play. You’ve got to be close enough to that ball carrier to actually get him around the hips, pull him close to yourself, swing your hips through and drop on the back of his legs. If you’re that close, wrap him up, tackle him and take him to the ground, like Ray Lewis used to do and everybody did for 100 years before that.”