OT: The Pittsburgher Thread: Sneaking up onto training camp

[Buddy Bizarre]

“Quick, someone invent a new rule that benefits the offense!”

The NFL is too smart to make something up this explicit.

Want to know what they'll do instead? Stop calling penalties on the offenses.

That's why you see the tackles moving before the snap and illegal formation called early in the year. People saw it called on the first game of the year and in prime time. You'll slowly see it called less and less during the season and the NFL's PR department will go "Teams have adjusted to what's being called" but you still have plenty of tape to prove otherwise.

More penalties on the defense and less on the offensive side. It gooses offenses and prevents QB's from getting killed. That is Goodell's wet dream.

 

[WickedWrister]

Arguably the worst franchise in pro sports right now. At least the White Sox don’t play in a salary cap league

 

[MrBrightside]

That's the remarkable thing about the offenses falling off a cliff - the QB injuries that invariably will occur and lead to Easton Stick v. Tyson Bagent matchups in November have not set in yet. That's when it could get really ugly.

 

[Buddy Bizarre]

Looked like a hip drop to me

Mixon calls out NFL for not enforcing hip-drop ban

Texans RB Joe Mixon called out the NFL on social media for not enforcing its own rules after injuring his ankle on what he believed to be an illegal hip-drop tackle during Houston's win over the Bears on Sunday night.

www.espn.com

 

[Peat]

I read in a thread on a different hip drop that the NFL has said they'll be enforcing hip-drop discipline more by after game discipline than by in game this season.

 

[bigdaddyk88]

I read in a thread on a different hip drop that the NFL has said they'll be enforcing hip-drop discipline more by after game discipline than by in game this season.

Yes they are going to fine players after the game since they don’t believe the refs can call it correctly in real e

 

[Buddy Bizarre]

I read in a thread on a different hip drop that the NFL has said they'll be enforcing hip-drop discipline more by after game discipline than by in game this season.

That's weird to me. How does doing it after the fact

1) Promote behavior change?
2) Help the team that is the "victim"?

The potential impact of the game at hand is more of a deterrent vs. getting fined after the contest. You're more likely to have players adjust after they get hit with a 15 yarder vs a miniscule fine.

 

[WickedWrister]

I've always preferred the college rule of only needing one foot inbounds for a catch. Just makes spectacular plays more frequent.

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

I'm not one to normally complain about safety rules in football but the hip drop stuff is just stupid.

If you don't want to get dragged down go down easy. There isn't a safe way to be tackled by a bunch of 230-310 lb athletes.

Are defenders supposed to let go when they wrap up and the person being tackled doesn't immediately go down?

 

[Buddy Bizarre]

I'm not one to normally complain about safety rules in football but the hip drop stuff is just stupid.

If you don't want to get dragged down go down easy. There isn't a safe way to be tackled by a bunch of 230-310 lb athletes.

Are defenders supposed to let go when they wrap up and the person being tackled doesn't immediately go down?

Yea I guess I just grew up in a different era where you brought the guy down by "any means necessary".

I never liked the horsecollar rule either.

But if you want to make rules, you better be prepared to enforce them. The NFL isn't (at least not in game)

 

[Peat]

That's weird to me. How does doing it after the fact

1) Promote behavior change?
2) Help the team that is the "victim"?

The potential impact of the game at hand is more of a deterrent vs. getting fined after the contest. You're more likely to have players adjust after they get hit with a 15 yarder vs a miniscule fine.

I was puzzled too.

I'm not one to normally complain about safety rules in football but the hip drop stuff is just stupid.

If you don't want to get dragged down go down easy. There isn't a safe way to be tackled by a bunch of 230-310 lb athletes.

Are defenders supposed to let go when they wrap up and the person being tackled doesn't immediately go down?

You don't need to swing your body around to land on their ankles to drag down a guy that size. The game is never going to be perfectly safe but it's perfectly possible to make the tackle without doing that and it drastically increases the chance of injury - and half the time that's why people are doing it. Tackles on guys heading out of bounds already, tackles on QBs standing still, and the rest of it.

 

[Pens x]

Khan absolutely s**** the bed when it comes to our receiver group. I hope these two wins against powder puff teams hasnt fooled him into thinking we are okay on offense.

 

[WickedWrister]

The NFL did a study and claimed there were 230 examples of hip drop tackles in 2023. Would've been the 4th highest volume penalty based on 2023 totals. By comparison, there were 173 unnecessary roughness penalties called last year.

It's just a difficult play to evaluate in real time. There's a degree of subjectivity in how the language is supposed to be interpreted too. It's not like the illegal formations that have been a point of emphasis where you can clearly see when an offensive lineman's helmet is not even with his center's waist.

I think there was maybe 1 called in week 1? I don't know about week 2. This leads me to believe that it's only going to be called when it's glaringly obvious or when a player gets injured as a result of it. But apparently not for Mixon

 

[The Old Master]

Pickens I think he's our starter. If he keeps playing this way, he is it. Makes drafting Kenny sting less.

yeah, but we still should be looking for his replacement in the draft.

 

[NewAgeOutlaw]

I was puzzled too.



You don't need to swing your body around to land on their ankles to drag down a guy that size. The game is never going to be perfectly safe but it's perfectly possible to make the tackle without doing that and it drastically increases the chance of injury - and half the time that's why people are doing it. Tackles on guys heading out of bounds already, tackles on QBs standing still, and the rest of it.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to tackle somebody built like an NFL running back? These tackles happen because of physics, not ill intent.

If you really wanted to hurt someboy legally you go at the knees, not wrap up and drag down.

It is gruesome, but when one strong person tries to drag down another strong person sometimes feet get caught and bones/ligaments snap.

Anybody who has ever played a sport with tackling knows it can happen any time you play.

 

[Buddy Bizarre]

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to tackle somebody built like an NFL running back? These tackles happen because of physics, not ill intent.

If you really wanted to hurt someboy legally you go at the knees, not wrap up and drag down.

It is gruesome, but when one strong person tries to drag down another strong person sometimes feet get caught and bones/ligaments snap.

Anybody who has ever played a sport with tackling knows it can happen any time you play.

Well put.
And you add the fact in a standard running play, the RB has all the speed/momentum vs the DLineman who is asked to fend off a 350lb guy then tackle a 220 lb guy who has about 7 yards of momentum.

That's hard to stop all that without contorting yourself into a pretzel yourself so you don't land/wrap up a guy in a particular way.

 

[JTG]

The Saints are really good...with Derek Carr.

I think Fields is a more talented QB. I hope Carr can win one outside of Oakland.

 

[Peat]

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to tackle somebody built like an NFL running back? These tackles happen because of physics, not ill intent.

If you really wanted to hurt someboy legally you go at the knees, not wrap up and drag down.

It is gruesome, but when one strong person tries to drag down another strong person sometimes feet get caught and bones/ligaments snap.

Anybody who has ever played a sport with tackling knows it can happen any time you play.

Played rugby union for fifteen odd years. It's not NFL tackling, and the level I played at didn't feature that many guys as jacked as NFL running back or tight end (but then I wasn't as jacked as an NFL linebacker) but I'm going to guess I've tackled as many people of that size as anyone in this thread.

You don't have to do a hip drop tackle. You don't have to do it to the point that it's not even banned in rugby union, because it barely happens.

The hip drop is not merely wrapping and dragging down. That's fine. It's the deliberate swinging round of the body that so the tackler's bodyweight lands on the target's ankles and traps them as they're going down. It's dangerous and frequently unnecessary. That's why the NFL banned it.

 

[OnMyOwn]

I used to “hip drop” all the time. It usually happened when I caught someone from behind and didn’t want them to gain any more yards by dragging my ass down the field. So I just held on to their waist and dropped my weight to the ground.

It wasn’t meant to be dirty, just stop forward progress. Otherwise a big dude is taking you for a ride downfield haha.

 

[Peat]

I used to “hip drop” all the time. It usually happened when I caught someone from behind and didn’t want them to gain any more yards by dragging my ass down the field. So I just held on to their waist and dropped my weight to the ground.

It wasn’t meant to be dirty, just stop forward progress. Otherwise a big dude is taking you for a ride downfield haha.

If you dropped it to the ground and not their ankles, then you are not committing a hip drop tackle as the NFL has banned them.


edit:

https://x.com/i/web/status/1835510295604736074

So this is why they're not being called.

If only the NFL had a whole bunch of cameras on every play and a whole room full of people ready to review video.

 

[OnMyOwn]

If you dropped it to the ground and not their ankles, then you are not committing a hip drop tackle as the NFL has banned them.

Yea I couldn’t tell you. Landed wherever momentum took me and wherever their legs were at the time. I just know it was common. It’s really hard to wrap and drive through someone if you catch them from behind and want to stop their forward progress. All I’m getting at.

 

[WickedWrister]

PFF loves James Daniels I guess. He was one of our top 5 graded players last week.

 

[Peat]

Yea I couldn’t tell you. Landed wherever momentum took me and wherever their legs were at the time. I just know it was common. It’s really hard to wrap and drive through someone if you catch them from behind and want to stop their forward progress. All I’m getting at.

Not wrong there.

The thing is, if you can't say where you landed, you're probably not committing a hip drop tackle as per the NFL's three points, which are -

- Wrap the runner,
- Swivel his hips to move his body across the back of the runner,
- Unweight his body and drop, contacting and trapping the back of the legs, ankle or foot.

Pretty much all tackles are wrapping. The rest, that usually takes work. Like, if you're swiveling your hips, you know where you're landing, right? There's so many examples of behind or from the side tackles that don't involves it that, for all I get how difficult it is to tackle in these situations, I don't see how banning it is taking out some absolutely necessary part of a tackler's weaponry.

 

[JTG]

Benton and Frazier have really solidified both sides of the ball. Frazier has made Daniels SO much better also. Seumalo should see another level also.

Frazier is currently ranked 20th in the NFL for C according to PFF. Currently Cam, Benton, Adams, and Loudermilk are all ranking top 50 in NFL according to PFF for defensive linemen.

 

[Peat]

20th doesn't seem that good when it's out of 32.