'Dirty & Dangerous!' Seattle Seahawks Call for Ban on Geno Smith 'Hip Drop'; New York Giants Fire Back

'Dirty & Dangerous!' Seattle Seahawks Call for Ban on Geno Smith 'Hip Drop'; New York Giants Fire Back
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The Seattle Seahawks cleaned up on the New York Giants with a 24-3 drubbing of the team from the "Big Apple'' on "Monday Night Football'' ... but the cleanup will not be complete, it seems, until they get action as a result of the "dirty play'' by Giants linebacker Isaiah Simmons that sent Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith out of the game with an injury.

"It just should have been recognized," Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said, calling for the NFL to do more to eradicate the "hip drop'' tackle. "I don’t even care about the penalty. We’ve just got to get that out of ball. It’s so dangerous.''

Giants ‘dirty’ hit on Geno Smo

Smith was tackled out of bounds by Simmons in the second quarter as the defender had the quarterback's torso in his grasp and then slid down to put weight on Smith’s knee from behind.

"A dirty play. Dirty play,” a furious Smith said after the win, which propelled the Seahawks to 3-1. “You guys can see it. It was a dirty play. It’s no place in this sport for that and hopefully something happens.''

Simmons, to his discredit, seems to be pretending that nothing happened, saying, "I really don’t got much to say about it. We're playing football. He’s mad he got hit? What do most quarterbacks do when they don’t want to get hit? They go down. I don’t really know what else to tell him about that."

As Carroll noted, there was no flag on the play - but that isn't the point. Smith eventually left the game and limped to the team’s medical tent before he returned in the second half.

"The grace of God allowed me to come back into this game and I’m happy to be back out there,'' said Smith, who can heal up a bit now as the Seahawks have a bye this week.

While pushing for a ban of the tackling tactic, Carroll said the Seahawks are "lucky" that Smith avoided a serious injury.


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Mike Fisher
MIKE FISHER

Mike Fisher - as a newspaper beat writer and columnist and on radio and TV, where he is an Emmy winner - has covered the NFL since 1983. He is the author of two best-selling books on the NFL.