The New Tackling Rule - Will It Matter For Fantasy Football?

The NFL institued a new tackling rule in the 2018 offseason which penalizes players more frequently. Dom Petrillo examines whether this is cause for concern for fantasy football players.

There are two new rules which will be watched closely in 2018, both in real football and for our purposes, and more importantly, in fantasy football. The first of these rules is the catch rule. We will have to see if this has finally been solved. In a short answer to the question, no, it will never be to everyone’s liking.

The other rule and the purpose of this article is the new tackling rule. While most everybody knows what the rule is, no one truly knows if or how it will affect fantasy football. The old rule stated the crown of the helmet could not contact the head or shoulder region of a player, but the new rule expands on this greatly. With the new rule in place, any contact from any player with the crown of the helmet to another person is a personal foul.

While this may seem a little harsh, it is, the common thought is it is for player safety which although it is certainly helpful, seems to be taken too far. At what point do we just give everyone towels and play flag football?

What to Make of Rules Changes

This said, the rule should not affect the fantasy football game in any major way. While there was a total of 53 of these penalties called in the first two full weeks of the preseason, which averages to 1.5 per game, this is not overly excessive and should go down as the players get used to what will be called. As with the Trent Richardson rule and others which have been adopted recently, the flags mellow out in the regular season.

The reason for all of the flags in the preseason is to set the tone for the regular season, making the need to throw so many flags non-existent. For those players who do not learn because of ignorance or choice, this will remain an issue. For the other 99 percent, it will be just another rule. After the second full week of preseason, with the NFL seeing the litany of calls which should not be called, they have already started adjusting the rule to allow for less calls on innocent form tackles which were mistakenly being called as part of those 53 calls.

The main place where this may be a factor is in IDP leagues. If there is a negative point total assessed for personal fouls or for any penalty, there may be a slight effect on secondary players for a while. Most of the contact we are talking about in this rule is for defenseless receivers and the main culprits in this action are three-fold: Defensive backs, James Harrison and Vontaze Burfict. The secondaries will learn to adjust very quickly and James Harrison is not long for the NFL at the end of his career. As for Burfict, well we can always hope. But, as for the rest, it will be figured out in short and will be negligible after all is said and done going into the regular season.

While the first couple of weeks may be dicey as everything gets sorted, the penalty flags will continue to decline over time as players adjust. Such they do with any new rule the NFL makes up for “player safety concerns.” In the long run, the new rule should not really have any effect on the action or the fantasy stats put up by any player. Whether they be a running back, wide receiver or any other position, rules are rules and just like any other rule, they are just more words in a book. No more and no less.

Yes, there will also continue to be bad calls made by the officials as with any game these calls will not just be limited to the new rules but also the old rules. So, don’t worry about the tackling rule any more than you do any other for the purposes of fantasy football. Instead, just continue to fret when a bad call changes the course of your team. Green Bay versus Seattle, I am looking at you.

More Draft Prep and Analysis