Brian Mitchell goes OFF on the NFL trying to ban hip-drop tackles

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We’ve heard this before, but the NFL is trying to ban the hip-drop tackle, and while it may not pass, there is ‘a lot of momentum from the important people that matter in this situation.’

“The whole thing about it is you can't tackle a person certain ways – you can't grab him by the shoulder pads, you can't grab them and try to take them down. I can show you the hip-drop tackle from 1990-something when I was tackled in the end zone,” former NFL running back Brian Mitchell said. “But as a runner, when you know someone is grabbing you like that, you get your legs out of it. You don't just let them pull you back on your legs.”

Cue an old school rant from the 14-year NFL veteran…

“In this day and age, the game is getting to a point where they're trying to police everything by rules, which is making players get lazy on the football field,” Brian said. “Protect yourself! If someone grabs you and you know that's what they're gonna do, you have to pull your legs out of it, or lean forward, and then sometimes it would not happen. But we have gotten to a point now where I think the strength of players is being affected by the rules of the game. They act like it just popped up, but that tackle has been there forever.”

“We love scoring, but if it gets ridiculous, people will turn it off. Nobody want to see a game played at 70-70. Eventually you're going to have to have the players live up to what the hell they signed up for,” Brian said. “I signed up to play a game and I know it is brutal, I know things can happen; I can't keep getting rules that make me become less and less able to take care of me, and I think the NFL has to understand that. And on top of it, you can't make it so advantageous for one side of the ball and not the other side. Offensive players today are not allowed to learn how to protect themselves, they think the damn rules are going to protect them.”

“I wonder if we are approaching the end of that era where really, really excellent defensive teams pop up on the radar, like the 1985 Bears or 2000 Ravens, The rules are going to be so one-sided, and maybe they're already there, that the only path to winning is by finding the right quarterback and putting a whole team of offensive players around them,” JP said. “And there aren't enough quarterbacks, so you're creating this world that is so inequitable in football. How many true actual franchise QBs are there? Four, maybe five? Then there's some good dudes but, like, they're regulating it that way.”

“They're regulating it too much, and since the fact that stats are so prevalent today, let's not make it so anybody can just get stats, okay?” Brian said. “If I'm going to make it to where you can't touch the quarterback, you can't tackle the people, what the hell is the defense there for? You think it's best just to go put offenses on the field and see how quick they can score? This is professional tackle football, everybody's gonna get hit or tackled at some point, so we can't make the rules for one part and not the others. Running backs and receivers get hit any kind of way, a quarterback will get hit too – and if the people you're paying to block those defensive ends are not good enough, then that's your fault. You can't overly simplify this thing to, oh, we want the guy to go on the field and not be touched. I understand that we’re promoted by certain guys, but make your backups better.”

His co-host JP Finley believes the idea comes from a good place of trying to prevent injuries, but it’s just going to end up in controversy when the refs have to call it, which means more replays and more time.

“I don't know that refs are great at what they do, but I know their job is damn near impossible, and this just makes it that much harder. Do we really want that much more stuff to deal with in a football game?” Finley asked.

“This is what I hate, and where I think you're going: if somebody gets hurt, their first words are ‘they’re gonna have to start calling flags.’ It’s part of the damn game, but they're trying to make the public think that if we change the rules, injuries are gonna stop,” Mitchell said. “You have human beings going 20-plus MPH colliding against each other. What the hell makes you think you could take injuries out of it? It's a part of the game, understand that and try to build the game moving forward where you understand people will get injured sometimes. They’re trying to act like they're taking it out, but the concussion thing: they keep doing stuff with special teams, but the concussions aren’t going away.”

JP Finley did admit that horse collars have declined since it became a penalty, but Brian Mitchell revealed the penalty isn’t even the actual tackle, and it led both guys to the ultimate question:

“How are you supposed to play?”

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