It'll probably be a shit show at first...

...but on balance, I think it's a good idea. While it may be difficult to see at speed, the hip-drop tackle is basically a jujitsu technique that uses the tacklers weight to unbalance the ball carrier. It's a learned and practiced maneuver, not just something that happens in the heat of battle. The league is telling the teams that their defensive players need to "unlearn" the technique and take it out of their repertoire.

I view it as similar to the refinements to roughing-the-passer penalties to eliminate the most dangerous plays. Two examples in particular to come to mind. Defensive players used to sack QBs while deliberately allowing their full weight to compress the QB into the turf. In other cases, sometimes pass rushers that were either blocked or arriving late would lunge at a QB's lower legs to "put a lick" on them. Both types of hits were once thought to be legal ways that a defense could exhibit physicality or intimidation. Unfortunately, they could also lead to injury. When a blitzing Bernard Pollard dove at Tom Brady's knees early in the 2008 it cost Brady reconstructive surgery that ended his season. It might have ended his career. The league concluded pretty quickly that that type of hit had to go.

Similarly, we've seen the hip-drop technique injure a number of high-profile players recently. The Mark Andrews and Tony Pollard injuries have received a lot of recent attention. Patrick Mahomes got knocked out of a playoff game for a half and was hobbled in the AFC championship game and the Super Bowl because of a hip-drop tackle. When the NFL sees star offensive players put at risk of getting knocked out of games, they have no problem putting a greater burden on defenders to alter their approach.

Will the zebras screw this up? Of course, they will. But defenders will adjust until the technique withers away from the game.