NOVEMBER 4: NFL senior vice president of football & international communications Michael Signora announced tonight that Luvu’s one-game suspension has been reduced to a $100K fine. Hall of Fame linebacker Derrick Brooks was appointed by the NFL and NFL Players Association to be the hearing officer for the appeal, and his decision means that Luvu will be available to play this weekend. The overturning of the punishment initially levied further shrouds the league’s interpretations of the controversial hip drop tackle penalty.
NOVEMBER 3: The NFL has suspended Commanders linebacker Frankie Luvu one game without pay “for repeated violations of playing rules intended to protect the health and safety of players, including during Sunday’s game against the Seattle Seahawks,” Tom Pelissero of NFL Network reports. Luvu will appeal the suspension.
For now, Luvu is slated to sit out the Commanders’ game against the Lions in Week 10 as a result of multiple hip-drop tackles this season. The NFL already fined the 29-year-old earlier in 2025 for violations in Weeks 4 and 8. His latest came during the Commanders’ loss to the Seahawks on Sunday night. The league will dock Luvu his $508,333 game check if his appeal fails.
When NFL teams voted unanimously to outlaw hip-drop tackles in March 2024, the league stated: “A hip-drop tackle occurs when a defender wraps up a ball carrier and rotates or swivels his hips, unweighting himself and dropping onto ball carrier’s legs during the tackle.”
After analyzing over 20,000 tackles, the league concluded that “this specific technique causes lower extremity injuries at a rate 20 times higher than other tackles, resulting in an unacceptable risk to player health and safety.” A season and half has gone by since then, but it’s believed that Luvu’s suspension is the first for hip-drop violations, Pelissero notes.
A former Jet and Panther, Luvu joined the Commanders on a three-year deal worth up to $36MM before the 2024 season. He started in all 17 of the team’s regular-season games last year and posted 99 tackles, a career-high eight sacks, an interception, and a forced fumble. The 29-year-old has again played in all of the Commanders’ games this season, logging 50 tackles, two sacks, and a forced fumble along the way. Barring a successful appeal, though, his run of perfect attendance with Washington is over.
To the NFL, taunting is bigger priority than star players ripping apart their ACL’s and Achilles
There were a lot of ACL tears just this past weekend.
Honestly trying to police the hip drop tackle is stupid. Most of the time I notice it, the offensive player is at fault as they are fighting for yards. The defender does not have many ways to stop runner.
Refs never throw a flag on it.
The league just does fines for it so another way to get some money back.
Seriously? The offensive player is at fault because he’s doing what he’s supposed to? Would you rather him fall down like many receivers do whenever a defender gets near them after they catch a pass?
Doing that will preserve their body instead of getting no additional yards and hurt.
Defenders already have limited angles. Tell me how a defender chasing from behind(straight or angle) is suppose to get the runner down safely? Can’t grab name plate because horse collar, facemask is off limit, reaching for arm is such a small zone, diving is a waste, guys have the tear away shirt. You have to grab the waist and get them down and the momentum of someone running forward and being grabbed back is usually going to involve the leg being stuck. Not interested in Bears vs Bengal like games all over the league.
A pretty good defense against any type of tackle is a piston hard straight arm but only a few running backs like Jim Brown and Derrick Henry have mastered that technique.
Same guy got away with a hip drop against Gibbs and a helmet to helmet hit against Goff in the playoff game last year.
Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is most likely the one that contains the most truth. Luvu’s agent/lawyer probably had about 50-100 examples of hip drop tackles not being punished with either a flag or a fine. It would have been an embarrassment of hypocrisy for the NFL if a video of all of them was to be made available for public consumption.
Any finger that exposes the performative and inconsistent application of NFL rules is quickly swept under the rug for the sake of the almighty dollar.