The season for Las Vegas Raiders running back Kenyan Drake is now over. Drake suffered a broken ankle on a violent collision Sunday against the Washington Football Team.
Washington safety Deshazor Everett collided into Drake and a pair of Washington defenders trying to tackle the Vegas running back. The thud of helmets and pads crashing into each other could be heard throughout the stadium and was picked up by TV cameras.
However, the violent collision isn’t what actually knocked Drake out of the game and the rest of the season. Washington defensive end James Smith-Williams pulled down Drake from behind simultaneously with the hit.
Drake’s ankle snapped as Smith-Williams’ weight landed over top him.
Drake took to Twitter to plead with the NFL to look into the specific style of tackling that injured him.
“The #NFL needs to look at this specific style of tackling. They are throwing flags for taunting and protecting [QBs] from getting touched but this is my 2nd straight season being injured by a guy pulling me back and using his body weight to roll up my legs,” Droke wrote.
Warning video below is graphic:
“If the emphasis is to protect the players this should be an illegal form of tackling like a horse collar,” Drake continued. “We lose players weekly to high ankle sprains and broken bones but the league would rather flag players for erroneous taunting penalties. Let’s get the priorities together.”
The league has made horse collar tackles illegal. However, they don’t have a measure or focus to stop pull-down tackles. Hard to fault anyone on the play that injured Drake. Unfortunately, the end result is Drake suffering such an injury.
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