Not the Best Advertisement for Dreadlocks (If You're Paid to Avoid Giant Men Contracted to Slam Your Body to the Ground All Afternoon, That Is)

After tackling Arizona Cardinals' running back Andre Ellington late in the third quarter Sunday, Jacksonville Jaguars defensive end Jason Babin emerged from the pile with a little something extra.

A very big handful of Ellington's dreadlocks...nearly two feet, according to ESPN, which Babin soon raised in the air seemingly in mild triumph.

(Image source: Twitter)

NFL rules state that a player’s hair hanging from the back of the helmet is considered part of the uniform and therefore fair game for grabbing in a tackle.

"I didn't know what was going on," Ellington told ESPN. “I was getting tackled and I looked and saw that he had a handful of my hair. It was a little dirty play by their part, but it's OK, we got the win. I didn't feel it at all. With the adrenalin flowing, I didn't feel anything. You don't feel anything when you're being tackled by some of those 300-pounders.

The dreads return to their rightful owner. (Image source: Twitter)

"I saw him holding it and said, 'Come on, man.' He said, 'It's part of the uniform.' I've lost some before, but not that much came out at one time like this. Guys don't intentionally try to grab it out. I think he was trying to grab it and pull it out."

Babin told ESPN that wasn't the case.

"It was one of those things," Babin said. "It wasn’t like it was pre-planned. It just happened. When you’ve got that much hanging out of the back of your helmet, sometimes I imagine it gets grabbed."

Babin dropped the hair on the field as he walked to the sideline.

"Their guy looked down and was like, 'Oh, man, that's nasty,'" Jaguars defensive tackle Sen’Derrick Marks told ESPN. "I was like, 'Actually, that's your running back's hair,' and he laughed at it. It was a pretty funny moment."

Ellington’s hair stayed on the field for a while until Cardinals defensive tackle Frostee Rucker picked it up and brought it to the sideline and gave it to him, ESPN noted.

Here's a report from Newsy:

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