Using 444

[Paul]

I'm looking for advice, please. Using Nginx v1.18.0 (Ubuntu) which is 
"old" but security updated by Canonical, rock solid and very fast, for 
several static html sites and as proxy to a couple of other sites using 
python or perl. Total ~250k requests/day

Recently logs have started showing ~10k php requests in rapid bursts. 
On a proxy to a perl box, this is a serious slow down

I've added the following, appears to work well

location ~ \.php$ {
	if ($request_method = GET) {
		return 444; # Drop
	}
}

I'm considering editing to  ^(GET|HEAD|POST)$) {

Any thoughts, downsides, recommendations?

Tnx and warmest regards to all,
Paul