Banning the Hip Drop Won't Make NFL Games More Exciting, It Will Just Annoy Fans

The NFL wants to use referees as a vehicle to increase the number of points scored, and it is going to suck for the viewing experience

The refs made a mess of the primetime game between the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys last season (ESPN)

NFL referees are not very good. It seems like every week the big story coming out of at least two or three games is how a referee error changed the game. Because of how widespread the issues are, it seems to be a systemic problem with how the league prepares officials and its expectations of them rather than the referees themselves.

Ball spotting is famously terrible in the NFL, with refs expected to guess the exact spot a player was down by eyeballing it from 30 feet away. Oftentimes, the ball is misplaced by more than a foot. Then, hilariously, they measure the spot by the exact inch when the chains come out. 

Pass interference calls often make no sense, with corners sometimes getting called after making no contact at all, but other times avoiding a flag after jumping on a receiver's back. Roughing the passer penalties are often confusing. Holding penalties seem to just be a lottery at this point, it sometimes feels totally random when an official when and wont throw a flag for it.

NFL refs are confused. Whether it is because of a lack of proper training, an inability to ref a game that moves so quickly with so many moving pieces, or just that the league hired the wrong people, it’s broken.

One moment of embarrassment for the NFL came during a late season primetime game between the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions. The Lions converted a late two-point conversion to win the game, only for it to be called back for an ineligible man downfield penalty. The ineligible man was determined to be tackle Taylor Decker, though Decker had reported eligible to the referee before the play. The referee confused him for another tackle, Dan Skipper, and made an incorrect call. A referee seemed to just not be paying attention, and it decided a close game.

Furthermore, after the game it was revealed that an earlier penalty against the Cowboys that put the Lions in a situation to win the game was a phantom call. A tripping call against Dallas tight end Peyton Hendershot stalled out the team’s chance to run the clock out late in the game. All-22 film reveals that Hendershot didn’t trip anyone. It was actually Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson who was the culprit, meaning the Cowboys should have received an automatic first down and effectively ended the game. A referee – who at this point had been calling the game for three real life hours – couldn’t tell which team was which.

In the end, a game between two of the NFC’s premier teams, on primetime, was defined by referees. The whole nation had just seen two potential Super Bowl contenders face off in a close game, and everyone was made about the poor refereeing. 

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On Monday, the NFL banned swivel hip drop tackles. These are tackles where a defender grabs or wraps his hand around a ball carrier, and uses the weight of dropping his hips to bring the runner down. If the defender falls on top of the legs of the ball carrier, then they will be penalized 15 yards and an automatic first down. The most comparable existing rule is the ban on horse-collar tackles.

In a vacuum, this ban seems fine. The tackles may be more dangerous when compared to a typical tackle. They gained attention after star Baltimore Ravens tight end Mark Andrews suffered a season ending ankle injury after being on the receiving end of a hip drop tackle against the Cincinnati Bengals during a Thursday Night Football game.

But considering the current state of refereeing, it’s hard to see how this doesn’t end in disaster. Subjective calls such as pass interference and roughing the passer have been thorns in the NFL’s side in recent years. There is no consistency in how and when these decisive penalties are awarded. Now, the NFL has introduced yet another subjective penalty, one that requires at least three moving pieces (the grab, the swivel, the landing). It will be near impossible for refs to, in real time, call these penalties with 100% accuracy. Someone is going to get burned.

Referees already have an inordinate amount of power in NFL games. Everything from spotting the ball, to deciding the true length of the play clock to a multitude of penalties is entirely up to the referees discretion. Now even more has been taken out of the hands of the players and put into the hands of the referees.

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The NFL Competition Committee, a collection of eight team executives who make changes to the rules and regulations of the game each year, expressed concerns on Monday that scoring in the league was down. In 2023, around 43 points were scored per game. They want that number at around 45.

Scoring dropped for a few reasons last year. Many teams lost their starting quarterbacks to injury, hampering their offenses. Defenses have also found strategies to limit many of the explosive play offenses we saw run wild around the league in the late 2010s, such as the proliferation of cover-2 shells. Issues at the college level have decreased the amount of offensive line talent coming into the league and recent quarterback draft classes have largely disappointed.

There is no easy fix for a slight drop in points. And fans love points, so a drop could be seen as an issue for the league. But is banning hip drop tackles a way to do it?

To answer this question, we must answer why high scoring games are so exciting. It’s because of the big play highlights. The memorable moments. These games also seem more free flowing, as high scoring offenses often move with tempo.

What NFL fans don’t want to see is more flags. Excessive referee involvement in a game can just destroy the fan experience. It is impossible to engage in the drama of a football game when the flow is being paused every few plays for a penalty. Even when it benefits your team, it just takes you out of the action.

It can be frustrating as a viewer, even a neutral viewer, when there is an over involvement of referees. We tune in every Sunday to see Patrick Mahomes, Jared Goff, Christian McCaffery and Myles Garrett, not the guys in stripes. 

We also want to see expressions of skill, not mistakes. Watching Tyreek Hill fly by the defenses like he has a booster attached to his cleats is incredible. Derrick Henry running through defenders like the X-Men’s juggernaut is an exciting site to see. When players are clearly reacting to overzealous refereeing instead, however, it diminishes these plays.

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen scored on a 50-yard touchdown run during his team’s playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in January. While a 50 yard scramble for a score by a quarterback sounds exciting, how he did it raises questions. Midway through his run, Allen pulled up as if he was going to slide, causing the Steelers defenders to relax. This allowed Allen to scamper by them, avoiding a situation where he should have been tackled and instead allowed him to score.

Allen, whether deliberately or not, took advantage of protections quarterbacks are given when in the open field to deceive the Steelers’ defenders and beat them for a touchdown. He did not outrun them, break their tackles or take advantage of other physical skills he possesses. He scored because the Pittsburgh players were afraid of the referees. 

This is bad for the product. The Steelers were outmatched in this game anyways and would have lost either way, but it is frustrating as a fan to see the ambiguity of refereeing in the league impact the game so heavily. Players are too scared to tackle sometimes out of fear of penalty. Defenses are not being defeated by offenses, they are being defeated by overzealous refereeing. Now with the hip drop ban, referees will have even more opportunities to penalize defenders, leading to even more hesitancy in the game.

In turn, we will have fewer highlights that display incredible athletic feats, and more of players simply confused by or terrified of the rule book.