The push against the Tush Push is more about the Eagles than injury

Politics permeates everything. Even the NFL. Even the Tush Push. The NFL has “tabled” the vote on banning the Eagles’ highly successful play until its spring meeting next month in Minnesota. In the meantime, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie chimed in on Tuesday saying the reigning and defending Super Bowl champions will be prepared “for every result.”

“I don’t ever remember a play being banned because a single team or a few teams were running it effectively,” Lurie said. “It’s part of what I think most of us love about football is it’s a chess match. Let the chess match play out. And if for any reason it does get banned, we’ll try to be the very best at short-yardage situations. We’ve got a lot of ideas there.

“It’s ironic that people would bring up health and safety,” Lurie said, via NBC Sports Philadelphia. “We’re at the top of the game in terms of wanting health and safety on every play. We voted for hip-drop tackle and defenseless receiver. We will always, always support what is safer for the players. It’s a no-brainer.

“If this is proven to be less safe for the players, we will be against the tush push. But until that’s the case, to me, there’d be no reason to ban this play.

“First of all, it’s a precision play. It’s very practiced. We devote a lot of resources to the tush push. We think we have an unusual use of personnel because we have a quarterback [Jalen Hurts] that can squat over 600 pounds and an offensive line that’s filled with All-Pro players. That combination with incredible, detailed coaching with Coach [Jeff] Stoutland [the Eagles’ run game coordinator and offensive line coach], has created a play we can be very successful at.”

In February, it was revealed, Green Bay Packers CEO Mark Murphy submitted a proposal to ban what has been deemed “a controversial play,” by media outlets kowtowing to the NFL teams they cover—because they cannot stop it.

“I am not a fan of this play,” Murphy wrote on the Packers’ website. “There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less. The series of plays with the Commanders jumping offsides in the NFC championship game to try to stop the play was ridiculous. The referee even threatened to give the Eagles an automatic touchdown if the Commanders did not stop it. I would like to see the league prohibit pushing or aiding the runner (QB) on this play. There used to be a rule prohibiting this, but it is no longer enforced because I believe it was thought to be too hard for the officials to see. The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner. This would bring back the traditional QB sneak. That worked pretty well for Bart Starr and the Packers in the Ice Bowl.”

Ironically, one of the other proponents for banning the play is Philadelphia-area native, former standout wrestler and current Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott, citing his stance is rooted in player safety. The Eagles and the Bills, McDermott’s Bills, ran the play more than any teams in the NFL last year. The Eagles did it better than anyone, running it successfully 86% of the time, as opposed to the 76% league average in the ’22 and ’23 seasons.

That’s the problem.

Talking to a handful of current and past NFL management people, they came to the same general conclusion: It’s about the Eagles’ success running the play than it is about the injury risk.

There has been no empirical data proving there is an injury risk when it comes to the play. The league said no injuries have been reported on the play. NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay has publicly stated, “There are definitely some people that have health and safety concerns, but there’s just as many people that have football concerns. So, I wouldn’t say it was because of one particular health and safety video or discussion. It was much more about the play, the aesthetics of the play, is it part of what football has been traditionally, or is it more of a rugby play? All those types of discussions. Health and safety are still there because of potential, but I wouldn’t go beyond that.”

When one NFL team can begin every set of downs first-and-nine, it’s created an undercurrent of jealousy and inept reasoning under the guise of “player safety.” It’s an unstoppable play, most of the time, and no other team in the NFL has the personnel nor a quarterback like Jalen Hurts, who squats 600 pounds, who run it better.

That’s the real problem the rest of the NFL has with it.

No one in the NFL is willing to come right out and say it.

It’s a physical, though unaesthetic play, which requires brute torque in a small, intimate space. It is embarrassing to the machismo NFL world when one team can plow over another for one yard with relative ease every nine out of 10 times.

Again, that’s the real problem the rest of the NFL has with it.

It used to be illegal to push or pull a ballcarrier, a foul that resulted in a 10-yard penalty. There is a famous image in the Ice Bowl (which Murphy referenced), showing Packers’ running back Chuck Mercein raising his hands to make sure the officials didn’t penalize him for pushing Bart Starr into the end zone for the game-winning score.

In 2005, the NFL made it legal to push a ballcarrier forward, though it is still a penalty for pulling and carrying a ballcarrier. The Eagles went a step further on what essentially is a quarterback sneak by pushing Hurts forward.

The Eagles did not even originate the play. They just perfected it. The idea may have actually come from the Minnesota Vikings in 2018, when linebacker Anthony Barr suggested, “I just think you should put some big dude at quarterback and then another big dude behind him and just push him, or two guys behind him and double push” while wearing an NFL Films wire. In 2020, while Nick Sirianni was then the Indianapolis Colts’ offensive coordinator, he suggested using 238-pound backup Jacoby Brissett to run a sneak. In 2021, the Eagles, in Sirianni’s first year as head coach, ran the play for the first time in Week 5, a 21-18 win at Carolina, on Sunday, October 10. Hurts torpedoed into the end zone on a third-and-goal play from the one, with 12 seconds left in the third quarter, using his powerlifting background, and with a big assist from backup tight end/makeshift fullback Jack Stoll pushing from behind. The next season, 2022, the Eagles converted 92.6% third downs on the tush push, successful 25 of 27 times and reached Super Bowl LVII, where they barely lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, 38-35.

It’s interesting that McDermott, someone with a sterling wrestling background and a real-life tough guy, would be opposed to the play. It’s also interesting that two other coaches with Philly connections, former Temple Owl and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles and former St. Joseph’s Prep and Penn standout and current Cleveland Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, are in favor of keeping the play legal.

With the vote ending in a 16-16 deadlock after Tuesday’s voting, and a minimum of 24 votes needed to pass a proposed alteration to NFL rules, the Packers and everyone else in the NFC East will be campaigning for their missing eight votes for the next league meeting on May 20-21 in Minnesota.

Is this an anti-Eagles’ move?

“You’re kidding me, right?” said one anonymous source in NFL management. “This is all about the Eagles being able to do something no one else can do. Why do you think (Eagles general manager) Howie (Roseman) was so pissed (during the owner meetings)? He knows. If the Eagles didn’t win the Super Bowl, and literally kicked everyone’s ass on their way doing it (including the Green Bay Packers twice), it would not be as big an issue as it is.”

It’s the most unstoppable play in the NFL.

Enough said.

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