Eagles

The Eagles Got Away with a Hip-Drop Tackle on the Game-Changing Fumble, but the Useless Zebras Made Enough Bad Calls to Balance it Out

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Sep 29th, 2025 · 10:43 AM EDT

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One of the things that didn’t get a lot of talk on Sunday afternoon is that the Birds got away with a hip-drop tackle on the key fumble that allowed them to take over in Tampa territory and stop some of the third-quarter bleeding:

JIHAAD CAMPBELL FORCES THE FUMBLE AND RINGO RECOVERS IT 😤 pic.twitter.com/U4TPwYcnxx

— The Eagle Times (@TheEagleTimes_) September 28, 2025

This was supposed to be a point of emphasis change in 2024, but it seems like they’re not calling it very often. The rule summary goes this way:

ARTICLE 18. HIP-DROP TACKLES

It is a foul if a player uses the following technique to bring a runner to the ground:

1. grabs the runner with one or both hands or wraps the runner with both arms; and
2. unweights himself by swiveling and dropping his hips and/or lower body, landing on and/or trapping the runner’s leg(s) at or below the knee.

It’s a little hard to see with the jumble of bodies, but Jalyx Hunt gets his arms around Bucky Irving’s waist, then he unweights himself and pulls his legs around to the outside to come down on the ankle. The main review they kept showing, you could see the ankle bent pretty significantly:

It was a huge point in the game, because the Eagles had just gone three-and-out with negative seven yards after Tampa scored the 77-yard touchdown pass to Emeka Egbuka. The Birds got the ball back and scored on the fake shove, which pushed the lead to 31-13, and they needed every single one of those points.

More often than not, the missed calls or crap calls balance each other out, and that was probably true in this game. Among the weak calls or no calls against the Birds:

• Cooper DeJean’s “taunting” flag for stepping over a receiver
• Josh Uche roughing the passer for getting a forearm into the collarbone/barely neck area
• Mayfield jawing in Quinyon Mitchell’s face, but no taunting there apparently
• pretty obvious DPI on a third quarter A.J. Brown stop route, no call
• Jalen Carter’s hand getting the side of Mayfield’s helmet for another roughing the passer

That’s just off the top of my head. Eight penalties for the Birds, five for Tampa.

Through four games, the Eagles have a -9 penalty differential, which is fifth-worst in the NFL. It’s resulted in a -124 yardage differential, which is fourth-worst. It’s a 35-penalty total, with the defense committing 13, special teams seven, and offense 15. That defensive total is second worst in the league, ahead of only the Giants. The special teams number is tied for 22nd-worst and the offensive total is tied for the fourth fewest, so the defense and special teams really gotta clean it up, regardless of how fugazi some of these calls have been.