The Eagles’ signature play is under attack again.
An unnamed team has reportedly proposed to ban the Tush Push/Brotherly Shove, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said, per NFL Network’s Judy Battista.
We’ll see what happens in the next couple of months.
Question on the Tush Push play is whether it could be modified to keep some semblance of the play intact. The play is run so infrequently that there isn’t enough injury data for the league to push for a ban based on injuries alone.
— Judy Battista (@judybattista) February 24, 2025
According to Dianna Russini of The Athletic, the Packers are the team that has proposed this rule change. The Eagles beat the Packers this past postseason in the wild-card round on their way to Super Bowl LIX.
This, of course, is not the first time there has been talk of banning the Tush Push. It came up a couple of years ago but a rule change proposal never got on the voting floor. If the rule change is officially proposed, it could come to a vote at the NFL’s annual league meetings in Palm Beach, Florida, next month. Any rule change proposal would need 24 of 32 owners to sign off on it.
After the last Super Bowl season in 2022, there seemed to be a little push to ban the play.
“All I know is everything we're doing is legal and it works,” Eagles GM Howie Roseman said at the 2023 combine. “And just because people do something that’s really good, doesn't mean it should be outlawed.”
The Eagles have had a lot of success running this particular version of the QB sneak and other teams have failed to replicate that success. The Eagles would probably tell you that the “push” element of the play is not the most important.
The play starts with having good offensive line play. The Eagles had that on their interior this season with Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens and Mekhi Becton. It also helps to have QB Jalen Hurts. Having a QB who can squat 600 pounds is helpful in these situations.
Here’s what Vincent said about the play in December 2023:
"I think there was a report that either the league office or the Commissioner was looking to eliminate this play. That was false," Vincent said, via NFL.com. "We've been monitoring this play from Week 1 of the regular season. This play has evolved. It has evolved, which coaches told us it would. We're seeing passes come out of that formation. People doing things differently than what we've seen a year ago. Everyone doesn't have the Philly success rate, but people are trying it.
"I would just say, Philly does it better than everyone else. That's a fact. On those fourth-and-1, fourth-and-inches situations, we've seen others — I think I've reviewed 78 plays on Friday of just the push play itself — just looking at formation. Is it one-back, two backs pushing, three backs? They're very effective.
"And that's what we don't want to do. So talking to the membership, you don't want to punish anyone for doing something well. People have tried different things to stop it. Have not had success. That's why bringing it to the membership just to say this play has evolved. Other people are doing it, and we've seen some pretty good football from the evolution of the original formation."
