Considering he was knocked out for several months last season, Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews is all for the NFL banning the hip-drop tackle from the game.
The hip-drop tackle was officially removed from the game at an owners meeting earlier this spring. Fouls will now be assessed a 15-metre penalty if whistled during a match this coming season. That, Andrews said Tuesday in Maryland after an offseason workout, is something he supports.
“I’m always in favor of making the game safer,” Andrews said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. “If you look at the last five years, there have been a lot of major injuries. So just raising awareness for these types of tackles, I think is a good thing.
Andrews was taken down with such a tackle in their win over the Cincinnati Bengals last fall. Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson was not penalized for the tackle that led to Andrews needing surgery, but he was heavily criticized by those in and around the league for what many thought was a dirty play.
While it didn’t seem like there was much else he could have done at the time to avoid this, given the situation, Wilson’s tackle was the textbook definition of a hip-drop tackle.
After surgery to repair a broken fibula and ligament damage, Andrews returned in time for the Ravens’ loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game. Andrews had career-highs of 544 yards and six touchdowns last season, his sixth with the Ravens.
“Obviously I didn’t play 100% in that game, but I worked really hard to get to that point,” Andrews said of the AFC title game. “It has prepared me for a very good off-season of working hard. I have been running a lot of routes with my family working out and I feel very good now. I feel fast and explosive.”
Although Andrews supported the change, there were plenty of people who were quick to speak out against it. Former three-time Defensive Player of the Year JJ Watt compared the ban to flagging football shortly after the vote passed. He wasn’t the only one either.
While it may take some time for defenses to get used to the new rule, Andrews believes it won’t be a major problem after a while.
“It’s not a bad thing to take that tackle out of the game,” he said. “I think the defense can find a way around that.”
