After Tight Vote, Tush Push Ban Fails At NFL Owners Meeting

The long-awaited vote on whether to ban the tush push happened on Wednesday after several months of discussion and debate.

The vote did not pass, which allows teams to still use the tush push play for the 2025 season.

For votes to be passed at the NFL owners’ meeting, a 75% majority of owners needs to pass new rule proposals. Twenty-two teams voted in favor of the ban, while 10 teams voted against banning the tush push. The ban proposed by the Green Bay Packers earlier in the year was two votes short of passing.

The Packers have been vocal in their dislike of the tush push play following their loss to the Eagles in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

“There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less,” Packers CEO Mark Murphy wrote on the Packers website before the Eagles’ Super Bowl win against the Kansas City Chiefs. “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.”

Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie brought former Eagles center Jason Kelce to the NFL owners meeting to try to keep the tush push play alive.

“I’m just going to answer any questions people have about my partaking of this play,” Kelce said on his podcast with his brother, Travis Kelce. “I don’t care whether it gets banned or not. At the end of the day, this is why you vote on things. If they vote to ban the ‘Tush Push,’ the Eagles are still gonna run quarterback sneak at a very high percentage.”

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Article by James Van Wickler