The NFL has a list of 24 player infractions banned from game days, each of which comes with its own fine baselines for first and second offenses.
There is one new infraction on that list this year: the hip-drop tackle.
Former NFL player Jon Runyan, the compliance officer for player accountability, was appointed by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to handle reprimands stemming from on-field incidents. That will include slapping players with fines for hip-drop tackles, which also come with in-game 15-yard penalties and automatic first downs for the offense.
What is the newly banned hip-drop tackle?
Hip-drop tackles are defined by the league as when a defender “grabs the runner with both hands or wraps the runner with both arms,” and “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.”
Last season, Ravens tight end Mark Andrews sustained a severe ankle injury from a hip-drop tackle against the Cincinnati Bengals and missed the remainder of the regular season. This prompted outcry from the Ravens—Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh said he wanted the hip-drop tackle removed from football—and seemed to be a turning point for the NFL to outlaw the tackle.
What is the punishment for a hip-drop tackle?
NFL owners made hip-drop tackles illegal ahead of the 2024 season, confirming a proposal from the nine-person Competition Committee comprising executives and coaches. In addition to the in-game 15-yard penalty flag, it will come with a first-time offense penalty of $16,883 and second-time penalty of $22,511—the same as horse-collar tackles, leg whips, hits on a defenseless player, blindside blocks and roughing the passer.
However, the fine cannot exceed 10% of a player’s weekly earnings; the rookie minimum salary is about $47,000 per game.
The only on-field personal foul violations that result in higher fines than hip-drop tackles are impermissible use of the helmet/launching, fighting, and incidents between players and officials.
During the NFL’s annual rule review, team owners voted unanimously to outlaw the practice, which the Competition Committee proposed with the help of feedback from the Coaches Subcommittee and Player Safety Committee. On the league’s official website, the hip-drop tackle is now described as a “specific technique that causes lower extremity injuries at a rate 20 times higher than other tackles, resulting in an unacceptable risk to player health and safety.”
Celebrating the decision, John Harbaugh told reporters, “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.”
NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller told reporters that in a film review, the league saw two hip-drop tackles in the first two weeks of the 2024 preseason missed by referees on the field. Those would still draw regular-season fines for players even if flags weren’t thrown.
Can players appeal hip-drop tackle fines?
Yes, like any other fine associated with an on-field infraction, players may contest a hip-drop tackle fine to one of four appeals officers—Derrick Brooks, Ramon Foster, Kevin Mawae and Jordy Nelson—who are assigned cases at random.
The designated officer then reviews the play in question independently, determining whether the alleged hip-drop tackle meets the NFL definition and whether the initial fine amount is fair. Their decision is final; there are no further options for a player if an appeals officer affirms a punishment.
