NFL owners have approved a rule proposal to ban the hip-drop tackle, the league announced Monday.
It will be a 15-yard penalty if flagged in games, but Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, strongly implied last week that the rule would likely be enforced in ways similar to that of the “use of helmet” rule, which typically leads to warning letters and fines in the week following a game rather than by flags during the game.
The proposed rule was written to address only a subset of the rugby tackling style that has spread around the NFL in recent years, competition committee chairman Rich McKay said last week.