Vote To Decide Fate Of Eagles' Tush Push Expected This Week

Vote to decide fate of Eagles' Tush Push expected this week originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

We should learn about the fate of the Eagles’ signature play, the Tush Push, this week.

After the rule change discussion was tabled at the NFL owners meetings in Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this offseason, owners have more meetings scheduled this week on Tuesday and Wednesday in Minneapolis. The proposal is expected to come to a vote this week, ESPN’s Adam Schefter said. The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reported the Eagles are continuing to make calls to support the play.

The debate was tabled on April 1 after the Green Bay Packers’ proposal to eliminate the play didn’t have enough support. Any rule change would need support from 24 of 32 owners and this one was reportedly split 16-16 after a straw poll in the room.

Basically, the Packers’ proposal is to eliminate the pushing element of the Eagles’ incredibly effective quarterback sneak. It’s worth noting that other teams have not had nearly the rate of success with the play.

The Packers’ proposal says no offensive player may: “immediately at the snap, push or throw his body against a teammate, who was lined up directly behind the snapper and received the snap, to aid him in an attempt to gain yardage.”

Earlier this offseason, Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said the debate lasted 30-40 minutes and went over player safety as well as the aesthetics of the play. The fate of the Tush Push was the biggest topic at the owners meetings in Palm Beach; it seems like everyone has an opinion.

While the NFL’s data suggests the Tush Push is an extremely safe play — zero injuries in 2024 — there have been some detractors using the argument of being “proactive” to prevent injuries. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie addressed the player safety argument in early April.

“We’ve been very open to whatever data exists on the Tush Push and there’s just been no data that shows that it isn’t a very, very safe play,” Lurie said. “If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be pushing the Tush Push.

“But I think, 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, has created a play we can be very successful at. There’s other ways of gaining that half yard, that yard. There’s quarterback sneaks, other types, but we’ve been very, very good at it.”

McKay’s revealing that the debate among owners went beyond player safety wasn’t surprising, especially because there’s no injury data to support the notion that the Tush Push is dangerous. McKay revealed what many already thought: Some detractors just simply don’t like the look of the play.

Lurie address the aesthetics argument too.

“You know what?” Lurie said. “I remember reading about the forward pass and they said it really was an odd play that is no part of American football. It was controversial when the forward pass came out. I think aestheticism is very subjective. I’ve never judged whether a play looks, OK. Does a screen pass look better than an in-route or an out-route? I don’t know. To me, it’s not a very relevant critique that it doesn’t look right or something like that. I don’t know what looks right. Scoring. We like to win and score.”

It seems possible that the league might simply want to return to the pre-2004 rules, which would eliminate pushing or pulling on all plays. That seemed to be a talking point coming out of the last meetings in early spring.

There was a debate about the Tush Push back in 2023 after the Eagles’ first Super Bowl appearance under head coach Nick Sirianni, but that proposal didn’t make it this far. Sirianni, by the way, admitted this offseason that he was lobbying for the play to stay.

The Eagles have made the point that they don’t feel it’s fair to them to be penalized simply for being better than every other team at one particular play. Sirianni, specifically, has pushed back because of all the work that has gone into perfecting the Tush Push; he wants everyone to know it’s not automatic.

Lurie in April said that if the push element of the play gets banned, the Eagles will still try to be the best team in short-yardage situations. And Sirianni clearly thinks they would be.

“I don’t get into hypotheticals,” Sirianni said. “We’d be good at it, no doubt. Because we have really good players … You don’t coach the push different. The push just has extra push. Everything else is coached exactly the same. And so we got a lot of reps at it and we’ve been really successful at it. I think we’d be able to be successful either way. But I think there’s a lot of exciting things that can happen off the push.”