Slipping away: coaches and personnel men are dismayed that one of the game's essentials—tackling—has declined steadily, if it has not become a lost art

Sporting News, The, August 4, 2003 by Dennis Dillon

When the Ravens' defensive players convened in May for their first meeting at minicamp, they viewed a 6-minute video that looked like a collaboration of NFL Films and Wild Kingdom. They saw a quartet of Chicago Bears converge on former running back James Brooks. They watched Ray Lewis tackle Browns receiver Quincy Morgan, force a fumble and recover it. They also witnessed a lion jump on the back of a giraffe, a shark gorge a seal and two cheetahs corral a gazelle.

The unusual tape was made by Mark Bienvenu, the team's assistant director of video operations, who spent several weeks culling footage from the Internet and other sources. He found several animal predator scenes and interspersed them among some 80 football clips that included some of the best defensive plays in NFL history and great plays by Ravens.

Baltimore defensive coordinator Mike Nolan concocted the idea. He wanted his players to see how they compared with some of the NFL's greatest. More important, he wanted to impart the message that tackling is not a one-man job; it takes a pack of players.

As he watched the scenes shift between the football field and the African savanna, Nolan was amazed: The animals were using swarming, tackling and teamwork techniques.

Perhaps NFL players should study the animal species. Tackling is one of the fundamentals in football, yet it has become an eroded skill. In a SPORTING NEWS poll of all 32 NFL teams late in the 2002 season (the respondents included four head coaches, nine general managers and 19 personnel men), 22 teams agreed that tackling has declined--if not become a lost art--in recent years. Six teams didn't think it was worse, and four weren't sure.

"Tackling sucks today. It's the worst it's ever been," says Saints coach Jim Haslett, who sat down to watch a game on the Sunday of his team's open week last November and became so disgusted with the tackling that he turned it off at halftime and did yard work. "You don't practice it. Players don't know how to do it."

Asked if tackling has deteriorated, Browns coach Butch Davis says, "I absolutely agree with that contention." 49ers G.M. Terry Donahue says, "I've noticed a gradual decline over the years," An AFC personnel man adds, "I think it's a big problem"

Poor tackling rears its ugly head in myriad ways. Players take the wrong angle to the ballcarrier. They get themselves out of position. They don't know where their help is coming from--or they get no help at all. They take their eyes off the target. They don't wrap up when they make contact. They go for the kill shot and whiff.

"You are supposed to tackle by running into the player, exploding and wrapping up," says Frank Gilliam, senior consultant/player personnel of the Vikings. "You are supposed to get low, bend your knees and run through the ballcarrier. Now, guys are just running straight up and into guys. But running backs are bigger and stronger now, so they bounce off of weak tackles."

It all leads to some revolting scenes. Leonard Pinth-Garnell, the fine arts critic Dan Aykroyd used to portray on Saturday Night Live, would say, "That was some truly bad tackling" and toss the tape in a trash can.

What's worse than bad tackles are missed tackles, errors that can cripple a defense. A few years ago, Richard Smith, now the Lions' linebackers coach, conducted a study on missed tackles. He calculated that a missed tackle on a play from scrimmage resulted in 7 to 9 additional yards and a missed tackle on special teams led to 13 to 15 more yards.

Last season, the Saints, Seahawks, Browns, Texans and Cardinals allowed more than 1,400 yards after contact on plays from scrimmage, according to STATS Inc. By comparison, the Super Bowl champion Buccaneers gave up 908.

The Jets started 1-4 in 2002. When coach Herman Edwards broke down the tapes of those five games during the team's open week, he noticed that the defense was missing eight to 10 tackles a game.

The Vikings finished a respectable 10th against the run last season, but they allowed 42 rushes of 12 yards or more. They missed a tackle within 8 yards of the line of scrimmage on 22 of those plays and missed two or more tackles on four of the plays.

"I don't worry about poor tackles," says George O'Leary, who coached the Vikings' defensive line last year and now is the team's coordinator. "I worry about missed tackles."

So what has caused the wane in tackling? There are five primary reasons:

1. It's not practiced. Years ago, teams could take an unlimited number of players to training camp, and players on injured reserve still could practice during the season Now the roster limits (80 players for training camp, 53 during the season), salary cap and new I.R. rules make for fewer bodies. The number of two-a-day practices have diminished in training camp, and teams often don't wear pads in practice during the season in order to keep their players flesh.

Because of the salary cap, teams don't have the resources to replace injured stars, so tackling in practice is a risky venture. "You're terrified of losing a player," says an NFC pro personnel director.