Cam Skattebo's injury came on what looked like an illegal hip-drop tackle

Billy Heyen

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Cam Skattebo's injury came on what looked like an illegal hip-drop tackle image

The hip-drop tackle is supposed to be a penalty.

The NFL knew that this particular tackling form had a tendency to lead to injuries, some of them serious. But when the New York Giants' Cam Skattebo was taken down on Sunday with an apparent hip-drop tackle, and suffered a serious ankle injury, no flag was called.

Very few such flags have been thrown since the NFL instituted this rule.

A hip-drop tackle has to do with what the defender does. They grab the ball carrier, then the defender lets his own feet come off the ground, essentially using gravity to pull himself and the ball carrier to the ground as the defender's hip pulls to the turf.

That's what this looked like on the Skattebo play, which we've linked out to here, with the video a bit tough to watch due to the angle Skattebo's foot is turned at afterward.

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This one feels to be close as to whether it deserves the penalty flag. But it emphasizes how little the NFL has called these penalties.

Whether or not this is one is almost secondary to the point of why the league put this rule in place in the first place.

Players keep doing the hip-drop tackle, which sometimes can be avoided and sometimes seems tough to avoid.

But when they do it, it's dangerous for the offensive player.

Skattebo is likely out for a long time now, and maybe because the tackle wasn't clean in the first place.

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Editorial Team