John Harbaugh sounds off on hip-drop tackle controversy; ‘it needed to be out’

The Ravens head coach double down on his stance as it pertains to outlawing one of the most dangerous techniques in the game.

One of the most controversial topics in the sport of football for the past two years has been the infamous hip-drop tackling technique, which has resulted in several notable players at both the collegiate and professional level suffering severe injuries.

When the NFL owners unanimously voted to ban the hip-drop tackle at the annual league meetings, Baltimore Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh was one of the most outspoken prominent figures in the sport to speak out in favor of the decision. He went as far as to praise NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations Troy Vincent for the parts they played in making it happen.

In the weeks since the league outlawed the dangerous tackling method, heated debates have been had and some doubt about the viability of the future of the game from a defensive perspective have been talked about by current and former players.

During the team’s annual pre-draft press conference on Tuesday, Harbaugh passionately defended his stance on the matter and expounded on why he believes it shouldn’t be as big of a deal or adjustment as many are making it out to be in the media.

“When did you ever even hear about the hip-drop tackle until two years ago or three years ago, right,” Harbaugh rhetorically asked. “That is because it was discovered probably in ruby and started being executed as stand alone technique.”

Harbaugh went on the describe it as a “three-part movement” where a defender has to be close enough to a ball carrier to wrap him around the hips then proceed to pull them closer before swinging their hips through to drop their weight on the back of the legs.

“If you’re that close, wrap them up and take them to the ground like Ray Lewis used to do and everybody did for 100 years before that,” Harbaugh said. “You’re talking about a tackle where the ball carrier has no method of escape from.

“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. 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.”

The Ravens were one of the teams negatively impacted by a variation of the hip-drop tackling technique last season when three-time Pro Bowl tight end Mark Andrews suffered a fractured fibula while being brought to the ground by Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Luke Wilson.

Fortunately, the injury wasn’t as severe as initially feared but it still required surgery and put him out of commission for the final six weeks of the regular season and the division round of the playoffs. He was able to return in time for the AFC championship but was limited to just 18 offensive snaps and recorded two catches for 15 receiving yards.

Some of the backlash for some of the rules the NFL has instituted over the last decade to make the game safer and elevate offensive production while simultaneously making the jobs of defenders increasingly more difficult is warranted. However, when it comes to the hip-drop tackle whether there was a swivel or non-swivel involved, Harbaugh’s stance on the matter is spot on because it needs to be removed from the game to decrease the likelihood of unnecessary injury risk.