Another NFL Player Badly Hurt After ‘Hip-Drop Tackle’ — Should This Move Be Banned?

The woeful 🏈New England Patriots lost to the slightly-less-woeful 🏈Los Angeles Chargers in a rainy slog of a game that didn’t see a single touchdown scored.

The 6-0 final score highlighted how event-less the game was — save for one curiously polarizing tackle early in the game.

In the first quarter, Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson was putting together the early makings of a good game when he racked up a quick 40 yards rushing on nine carries.

But on that ninth tote, Chargers linebacker Tuli Tuipulotu wrapped up Stevenson with a completely legal tackle that saw the Patriots running back land awkwardly and hurt his ankle. He would not return to the game.

You can watch what happened below:

So, if Stevenson was hurt on a legal play… why all the fuss about it on social media?

Well, the controversy of this injury stems from the tackling form of Tuipulotu, which is often described as a “hip-drop tackle.”

In short, it’s the kind of tackling where the tackler wraps an opposing player around the hips, and brings them down by dropping all of their own weight.

By the letter of the law, there’s nothing illegal with that tackle, but fans, players, and pundits alike have noticed that that tackling form seems to be producing more injuries than standard shoulder-first tackling.