Packers’ Proposal To Ban ‘The Tush Push’ Is ‘A Little Insulting,’ Eagles’ Coach Nick Sirianni Says

It’s the play that the Philadelphia Eagles have perfected over the past couple of seasons. The one with which Jalen Hurts scored the first touchdown in their Super Bowl LIX victory. The one that failed the Buffalo Bills in the do-or-die last drive of their AFC Championship. It has many names – the Brotherly Shove, or more commonly, the Tush Push. And now it may be banned in the NFL.

The NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, Troy Vincent, announced Monday that a team had submitted a rules proposal to ban the tush push. On Tuesday, the Green Bay Packers took ownership of the proposal.

“I know we’re not very successful against it, I know that,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said on the topic at the NFL Combine.

“We do have a club playing-rule proposal around the tush push. It’s the way they deemed it, the tush push. … It’s on our agenda. The club proposal is, ‘We need to make some adjustments to that. Is that a viable football play?'”

The play has achieved the most scrutiny at the hands of the Eagles and the Bills, largely because they have been so successful when using it. The rest of the NFL has a 71% success rate when using the tush push, compared to 87% for the Eagles and Bills. The Packers’ specific ire at the play seems to stem from their playoff elimination by the Eagles, following which president and CEO Mark Murphy took to the Packers website to call for its elimination.

“There is no skill involved, and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less,” Murphy wrote. “I would like to see the league prohibit pushing or aiding the run.”

In response to the proposal, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni called the idea that the tush push is automatic “a little insulting.”

“The fact that it’s [portrayed] as an automatic thing, we work really hard, and our guys are talented at this play, and so it’s a little insulting to say we’re good at it so it’s automatic. We work really hard at it.”

The heaviest argument for a tush push ban, though, is in the likelihood of injury, which has incurred concern from many observers, including Bills head coach Sean McDermott. Despite his team’s success with the play over the past year, Buffalo has run the play barely half the number of times as the Eagles.

“To me, there’s always been an injury risk with that play, and I’ve expressed that opinion for the last couple of years or so when it really started to come into play the way it’s being used, especially a year ago,” said McDermott. “So, I just feel like, player safety and the health and safety of our players has to be at the top of our game, which it is. It’s just that play to me has always been … or the way that the techniques that are used with that play, to me have been potentially contrary to the health and safety of the players. And so again, you have to go back though in fairness to the injury data on the play, but I just think the optics of it, I’m not in love with.”

He went on to discuss how the Bills try to minimize player risk in their tush push, noting that “one team in particular” exerted a lot of force upon the quarterback.

Sirianni rejected that notion as well, calling it “a little made up.”

“Now, the numbers will tell the truth,” he said, “but I don’t think there was many injuries with it this year. I can’t remember one injury we had on that play, and we ran it more that everybody else. Just because it’s a successful play for us doesn’t mean that it should go away.”

NFL owners could vote on the controversial proposal next month at the annual league meeting. If examined, the measure would require the assent of 24 of 32 owners.

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Article by Katherine Manz