"Let’s get the priorities together" - Raiders' Kenyan Drake calls out NFL over ankle injury
Kenyan Drake is joining the hordes of people unhappy with the state of officiating in the NFL. Between roughing the passer, taunting, and a seeming increase in ticky-tack calls, there are plenty of reasons to be frustrated with the rules of the current era in the NFL.
However, Kenyan Drake has a new one. The running back is nursing an ankle injury that he says could have been prevented.
Kenyan Drake vents after suffering preventable ankle injury
Drake suffered an ankle injury during the contest against the Washington Football Team over the weekend. According to CBS Sports, he has already been ruled out for Week 14 against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Graphic Video Warning: 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. https://t.co/zgJt4rM9yG
The play in which Drake was injured was the result of a tackler hitting him from behind, pulling him back, and essentially sitting down. It got his legs rolled up and caused the injury.
According to Drake, this is the second season in a row that he has been impacted by an injury caused by a hit like this.
From NFL Now: The Washington Football Team got potentially great news on TE Logan Thomas, while the #Raiders lost RB Kenyan Drake for the season. https://t.co/jHfie1LAoE
He wants action to prevent this type of tackling in the future. In his mind, if the league is going to go to great lengths to protect the quarterback, they should be giving some protection to running backs.
Running backs have been eviscerated by injuries this season. Kareem Hunt, Nick Chubb, Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Dalvin Cook, Melvin Gordon III and others have all taken hits this season they couldn't brush off.
The more injuries in the sport, the more the sport suffers as a result. Some would say it makes sense for the NFL to see if they can do anything about this.
Running back injuries not only hurt the game, but they hurt the viability of fantasy leagues. If players are going to get injured, it makes fantasy games come down to whoever had the lucky draft that avoided injuries.
So it starts to weigh on fantasy players to the point that it becomes tempting to look for another game to play.
Drake commented on his tweet and said that the tackle wasn't intentional in creating an injury but it should still be regulated like a horse collar or hitting a quarterback in the legs. Put simply, he wasn't calling out the specific player that did it.
He called out the NFL for allowing it to happen while enforcing taunting penalties. Could the NFL take a look at Drake's injury as a case study and a jumping point for a fix?