HOUSTON — The hip-drop tackle -- it's a term you're going to be hearing more about, especially after Texans' running back Joe Mixon went down with an injury Sunday night in Houston's win over Chicago.
So what is a hip-drop tackle? According to the league, it's when "...a defender wraps up a ball carrier and rotates or swivels his hips, unweighting himself and dropping onto the ball carrier's legs during the tackle."
It was banned by the NFL in 2024.
So far, no discipline has been handed down to Bears linebacker T.J. Edwards, who tackled Mixon. The league is reportedly reviewing it. A flag wasn't thrown.
Mixon himself took to social media on Monday, posting this on X: "The NFL and NFLPA made it a rule and an emphasis for a reason. Time to put your money where your mouth is."
Here's what Demeco Ryans had to say about it.
"Definitely in my mind, considered a hip drop when the defender unweights himself and he puts all of his weight on the runner's legs," he said. "And you see why we want to get the hip-drop tackle out of the game, because it causes a lot of injuries when it happened. The hip-drop tackle doesn't happen much, but the percentage of injury when it does happen, it is very high."
Mixon returned for only two carries for five yards the rest of the game. In total, he finished with nine carries for 25 yards. At this point, we don't know his status for this Sunday's game against Minnesota.
