PHILADELPHIA — There’s an official proposal in the NFL to ban the Philadelphia Eagles’ signature short-yardage play.
Whether you call it the Tush Push or the Brotherly Shove, NFL teams over the last two seasons have been unable to stop the quarterback sneak play the Eagles run when they need a yard or so to get a first down or a touchdown.
Since they adopted the play, Philly has a success rate of more than 90% when they run it in short-yardage situations.
The rest of the league has been unable to devise a way to stop it, and with the possible exception of Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, few other teams have been able to come close to mimicking the Eagles’ success rate with it.
Now, according to multiple reports, the Green Bay Packers are leading the charge to ban it.
Packers president Mark Murphy, who is set to retire this year, is calling to bring back a rule that would make pushing or aiding a runner illegal.
When the Eagles run the Tush Push on short-yardage downs, they line up two players behind quarterback Jalen Hurts, who move forward and shove him into the line after he receives the snap.
In a recent column on the Packers’ website, Murphy said “there is no skill involved” in running the Tush Push and called the play “bad for the game.”
Supporters of the play point out that if there’s no skill required to run it, then why haven’t other teams been able to imitate the success the Eagles have had with the Tush Push?
The Eagles’ overwhelming success with the play is due in large part to the power of the Eagles’ offensive line, which replaced future Hall-of-Fame center Jason Kelce with Cam Jurgens this past season and added free agent acquisition Mekhi Becton at right guard this season and hardly skipped a beat.
It also helps that Hurts, who has scored 33 of his 55 career rushing touchdowns on runs of 1 yard or less, can squat more than 600 pounds.
“The tush push ban sounds like sour grapes,” NFL analyst Chris Simms posted recently on Bluesky. “Any other team that had the Eagles O-line would run it just as much. Seems unfair to take away something from a team for being good at it.”
The NFL decided at the end of the 2024 season to take no action against the Tush Push, but the debate is back again during this offseason.
According to Pro Football Talk, any rule change would require the approval of 24 of the league’s 32 teams, and it’s not clear if there are enough teams out there willing to ban the play. It’s also not clear that it will come to a vote at league meetings next month as many proposed changes are rescinded before getting to that point.