PHILADELPHIA − Here’s a proposal that the Eagles can use when they play the Green Bay Packers on Nov. 10:
On the Eagles’ very first play, they should line up in Tush Push formation, then run the play. Sure, the play was designed to pick up a yard or less in short-yardage situations, typically on third and fourth downs.
But the Eagles have been so good at it over the past three years, succeeding nearly 90% of the time, that quarterback Jalen Hurts would often pick up two or three yards. So why not run it on first down? Then second, third and fourth. That should be enough to get a first down and keep possession of the ball.
That would serve the Packers right for unsuccessfully trying to ban a play that no one could find a legitimate reason to ban − other than the Eagles were better than it than everybody else.
The final nail in the Packers’ Tush Push coffin came on May 21 when the Packers’ proposal didn’t get the necessary 24 votes from the 32 NFL owners, or 75%, to approve the ban.
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The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reported that the vote was 22-10, the same score as the Eagles’ playoff victory over the Packers last January. It was also reported that five of the 10 votes to reject the proposal came from the Eagles, Ravens, Patriots, Jets and Lions.
It’s also likely that the Cardinals, Colts and Saints also voted against the ban, since their head coaches − Jonathan Gannon, Shane Steichen and Kellen Moore, respectively − were coordinators with the Eagles under Nick Sirianni.
What’s the common denominator? If those eight teams did in fact vote against the ban, only one of them is on the Eagles’ schedule this season.
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So congratulations to Lions head coach Dan Campbell for facing the challenge head on.
And it’s thus clear why the other 13 teams on the Eagles’ 17-game schedule (we counted the NFC East rivals Giants, Cowboys and Commanders once) voted for the ban:
You only need one word: Chicken.
Every other possible reason was debunked.
When the Packers made their initial proposal in February, there was considerable fear that the play led to injuries. Then the NFL conducted a study that showed there were no injuries from the play last season.
So then the argument became, let’s be proactive instead of reactive to prevent future injuries.
Great, like with concussions? Or kickoffs? Keep in mind that it took more than 100 years before the NFL decided to change the kickoff rules to cut down on injuries.
Then came the argument that it’s not a football play, that it resembles more of a rugby scrum.
Last we checked, the object of tackle football is to, well, tackle the person with the ball. There was nothing in the rule book as to what that was supposed to look like.
As Eagles chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie pointed out at the NFL owners’ meetings on April 1:
“I remember reading about the forward pass, and they said it really was an odd play that is no part of American football, so it was controversial when the forward pass came out,” he said about the 1940s. “I think aestheticism is very subjective. I’ve never judged when a play looks OK.
“Does a screen pass look better than an in-route or an out-route? I don’t know. For me, it’s not a very relative critique that it doesn’t look right or something like that.
“What looks right? We like to win and score.”
And it’s up to the other team to stop the Eagles from doing that.
Sure, some will say the play became sort of like the theater of the absurd during the NFC Championship game, when Washington’s Frankie Luvu jumped over the pile, offsides, before the ball was snapped as the Eagles lined up for a Tush Push from Washington’s 1-yard line.
The penalty, half the distance to the goal, advanced the ball a matter of inches. So Luvu did it again. Jonathan Allen was offsides twice during that sequence as well.
Finally, the referee announced that, “Washington is being advised that at some point … (the Eagles) will be rewarded a score.”
Luvu stayed onside and the Eagles scored on a Tush Push. The Eagles won 55-23.
Here’s the bottom line: The NFL couldn’t ban the play because it wasn’t determined to be an injury risk. And the NFL can’t ban a play based on aesthetics, or not being able to stop a particular play.
“If it’s safe, then it’s a football play, and we have no problem with it,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said at the owners’ meetings. “If there’s a problem with it safety-wise, then we need to consider what they’re talking about.”
Celebrate the Eagles’ Super Bowl win with our new bookThey were talking about nothing. And really, that’s what this play boils down to. ESPN research determined that the play was used 0.3% of the time last season − at not used 99.7% of the time. The Eagles and Bills ran it 163 times, more than the other 30 teams combined.
Yet the Packers spent months coming up with a proposal, then tweaking it, then making a detailed presentation to get the play banned. Not to be outdone, Lurie reportedly spoke for about 30 minutes at the meeting on May 21, then brought in longtime Eagles center Jason Kelce to make his appeal to keep the play.
In the end, the Eagles won out. They could breathe a sigh of relief, and perhaps gloat, as they did on social media, posting a 26-minute long video on YouTube of every single Tush Push play they ran over the past three seasons.
And had the play been banned, the Eagles would have simply gone back to what they were doing before adding the “Tush Push” wrinkle to the QB sneak: Running the QB sneak.
The Eagles were effective nearly 90% of the time there, too, from 2017-21, whether it was Hurts or former quarterback Carson Wentz running it.
In the end, it was all about perspective, as Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown put it: “I think it’s only one yard, so …”
Then Brown laughed, perhaps echoing a possible Tush Push fan, had he been alive today, in author William Shakespeare. His phrase in “Macbeth” would certainly apply to this issue: “Full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
Except in short-yardage situations.
Contact Martin Frank at [email protected]. Follow on X @Mfranknfl. Read his coverage of the Eagles’ championship season in “Flying High,” a new hardcover coffee-table book from Delaware Online/The News Journal. Details at Fly.ChampsBook.com
