Roquan Smith’s tackle causing Chris Godwin’s ankle injury suggests NFL will cautiously officiate hip-drop tackles
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers took one on the chin in their Monday night loss to the Baltimore Ravens, and Chris Godwin’s season-ending ankle injury was the awful cherry on top for the NFC contender.
However, while Godwin’s absence will have a significant impact on the NFC South race and for his fantasy football managers, the biggest ripple effect from the sequence might relate to NFL officiating.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the NFL has apparently said that Ravens star linebacker Roquan Smith used a hip-drop tackle to bring Godwin down on the play where he got injured. As we all know, discussions about the hip-drop tackle and needlessly complicating an already overwrought game with MORE penalties were major sticking points during this past offseason.
However, if the hip-drop tackle was that clear, Smith weirdly (or unexpectedly?) wasn’t flagged for it in the middle of Monday night’s game. And the NFL only reviewing it after the fact for a potential fine suggests this might be the penalty structure for most if not all, hip-drop tackles moving forward:
Here is the play on which Chris Godwin was hurt that now will be under review: https://t.co/wzw0Ob5jPn pic.twitter.com/7JOYezfrsQ
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) October 22, 2024
My stance about penalizing hip-drop tackles as a symptom of over-officiating only changes slightly in this scenario. I still think it’s very silly to take a tool out of the toolbox for defenders in an already offensively slanted sport. It’s not like dudes are trying to injure people on purpose. You bring skill players down by whatever means possible, and sometimes that happens. This has always felt like trying to officiate out the brutality of an inherently brutal sport for optics.
With that said, I appreciate that defenders like Smith might, at least, not hurt their team in the middle of important games with a backbreaking penalty thanks to the foolish rule.
If penalizing hip-drop tackles will really only have the structure of reviews the following day, followed by possible fines, I find this whole deal much easier to stomach. It’s still not great that it hurts the pockets of guys just doing their jobs, but you can live with it if it doesn’t otherwise affect the outcome of a game too much.
Maybe this is the way the NFL always intended to officiate hip-drop tackles.