J.J. Watt, NFL players blast league's ban of hip-drop tackle: 'Fast forward to the belts with flags on them'

Jacob Camenker

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J.J. Watt, NFL players blast league's ban of hip-drop tackle: 'Fast forward to the belts with flags on them' image

The NFL decided to ban the hip-drop tackle at its annual owner's meetings Monday. The league's players did not take kindly to the resolution.

The decision was announced by Rich McKay, head of the NFL's competition committee, who said the ruling was unanimous.

"Do we have a problem?" McKay asked rhetorically about the hip-drop tackle. "The answer was yes."

McKay conceded that the play would be "a hard one to call on the field." He also clarified there was a difference between a hip-drop tackle and the specific "swivel hip-drop tackle" the league is looking to ban.

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Even so, the NFLPA was displeased with the ruling and released a statement condemning it shortly after it was publicized.

"We cannot support a rule change that causes confusion for us as players, for coaches, for officials and especially, for fans," the statement said.

It wasn't just the NFLPA that spoke out about the rule change. It earned criticism from numerous NFL players, both current and former, including J.J. Watt and Tony Dungy, among others.

Below are some of the most notable reactions to the rule change:

That said, not all believed that getting rid of the hip-drop tackle was a bad thing. Shawne Merriman was among those who believes it will be a positive for the game, as he expressed on X (formerly Twitter).

Kenyan Drake echoed that sentiment, noting that he suffered a serious ankle injury because of a hip-drop tackle.

The bright side for all those exasperated by the change: It appears that the NFL isn't launching whole hog into the ban, as McKay explained.

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"We want to make it a rule so we can deal on the discipline during the week," he said.

That doesn't mean that officials will avoid calling the penalty, but there could be somewhat of a grace period as all parties work to coach it out of the game.

Jacob Camenker

Jacob Camenker Photo

Jacob Camenker first joined The Sporting News as a fantasy football intern in 2018 after his graduation from UMass. He became a full-time employee with TSN in 2021 and now serves as a senior content producer with a particular focus on the NFL. Jacob worked at NBC Sports Boston as a content producer from 2019 to 2021. He is an avid fan of the NFL Draft and ranked 10th in FantasyPros’ Mock Draft Accuracy metric in both 2021 and 2022.