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Ravens Insider: Ravens LB Roquan Smith mum on possible fine over alleged hip-drop tackle


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Whether Roquan Smith was fined for an alleged hip-drop tackle on Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Chris Godwin on Monday night that led to a gruesome and likely season-ending ankle injury, the Ravens inside linebacker wouldn’t say.

“That’s not really something to discuss at the moment,” he said Thursday in Owings Mills. NFL fines are announced every Saturday during the season.

First and foremost, the All-Pro linebacker said, is the health of Godwin, the 2019 Pro Bowl selection and Delaware native.

“You never wanna see anybody go down with any type of injury, but we play a very physical game and it demands a lot,” Smith said. “Bullets are playing pretty fast, but I never go into any game meaning to injure any player.”

Godwin, who suffered a dislocated ankle on Smith’s tackle in the final minute of Baltimore’s 41-31 victory at Raymond James Stadium, underwent surgery Thursday.

Though Smith was not flagged on the play, it was being reviewed this week by the NFL to see if it met the grounds for a fine. In March, teams unanimously voted to ban the hip-drop tackle, which is when a defender wraps up a ball carrier, swivels his hips, unweights himself and drops onto the ball carrier’s legs.

The NFL cited an injury rate 20 times higher than a normal tackle, leading to the ban.

After Smith’s tackle on Monday, Godwin’s left leg was put in an aircast and he was carted off the field. It was a crushing blow for the Buccaneers, who also lost wide receiver Mike Evans to a hamstring injury earlier in the game, and to Godwin, who had an NFL-leading 50 catches for 576 yards and five touchdowns before being injured.

Afterward, Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles defended his decision of keeping Godwin in a game Tampa Bay had little chance of winning at that point.

“He’s a player. We’re trying to win the ballgame. We were still down 10, we’re trying to get extra points and kick another onside kick,” Bowles said. “It just happened. With Mike [Evans] going down, we didn’t have that many receivers left as it was, so we play what we got.”

The Washington Post reported at the league’s fall owners’ meeting last week that there were 22 plays up for review of a hip-drop tackle this season. No flags have been thrown, though seven players have been fined.

Smith was also previously fined once this season for unnecessary roughness after a horse collar tackle on Kansas City Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco, but he won his appeal of that fine. The Ravens are also familiar with the hip-drop tackle after they lost tight end Mark Andrews for the final two months of the season last year after his ankle was injured while being dragged down by Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson last November.

Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton, who was nearby Smith’s tackle and had a visceral reaction to the injury as he saw it unfold, told The Baltimore Sun that he did not think it was a hip-drop tackle.

“I don’t wanna say it’s part of the game, but I don’t think Roquan had any malicious intent with it,” Hamilton told The Sun. “I think he’s just really trying to tackle him.

“I thought he grabbed him and kind of dove at him. I don’t think he hip-dropped him or anything like that. Unfortunately, his leg got stuck under Roquan’s.”

Hamilton also echoed the same sentiments as Smith when it came to the injury.

“At the end of the day, the fine, the ruling is the least of anybody’s worries,” he told The Sun. “He’s been a great receiver, a great pro in the league for a while and his season’s over, so it sucks.

“We’re always competing, but at the same time everybody here has lives, we’re real people and trying to provide for everybody we know and obviously your body is important.”

Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1.

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