Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, told NFL senior national columnist Judy Battista that one team recently submitted a proposal to ban the Philadelphia Eagles’ specialized quarterback sneak play known as the Tush Push. Though Vincent did not identify the team, NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero reported that the Green Bay Packers proposed the ban.
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
“Hip drop and the Tush Push were in the same conversation three years ago,” Vincent said to Battista. “A year ago, we felt like let’s just focus in on the hip-drop tackle, and the Tush Push, just say, hey, the Philadelphia Eagles, they just do it better than everybody else. But there are some concerns. Our health and safety committee has laid that out today with a brief conversation on the injury report. There’s some challenges, some concerns that they’ll share with the broader group tomorrow. But the Tush Push will become a topic of discussion moving into March.”
The NFL’s competition committee has until March 30th – when the Annual League Meeting is scheduled – to prepare arguments for why the play should be eliminated.
This is a lame move by the Packers
This is one of the few moments where I am embarrassed to be a Green Bay Packers fan. This type of retaliation against the team that just won the Super Bowl is such a chicken-sh*t response to how to defend this play.
Green Bay is basically saying, “Since there’s no way to successfully defend this play, we should just eliminate it entirely.” That is ridiculously lame, especially when you realize the Packers ran a specialized version of their own Tush Push with tight end Tucker Kraft!
Aaron Nagler, one of the founders of CheeseheadTV and arguably the smartest Green Bay Packers journalist in the world today, had the perfect counterpoint to this proposal.
“If everyone could do it, everyone would,” he said in a February 24th social media post. “Figure out how to run it or stop it. But stop with the complaining.”
🧀 The Packers trying to ban the Tush Push is EMBARRASSING 🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/L58ljCk9iv
— CheeseheadTV 🧀 (@cheeseheadtv) February 24, 2025
The craziest part about this proposal is that the Packers have actually been one of the teams that successfully defended the Tush Push! They were able to stop the Tush Push against Philly in Week One, and they did it again in the playoffs. If you’re able to stop this play, why are you the one calling for its ban? Shouldn’t you leave that to another team that CAN’T stop the Tush Push?
This is just a bad look for the Green Bay Packers. It’s like a crying child yelling, “That’s not fair,” when his friend scores a touchdown against him in a backyard football game. “Embarrassing” is the right word to describe this response from one of the NFL’s oldest and most respected teams.
Unfortunately, the Packers have a point
As much as I hate this proposal from Green Bay, there is some merit to calling for the Tush Push to be banned. I mean, the formation is illegal based on the NFL’s standards.
In any normal NFL play, the center is ahead of other offensive linemen with the guards offset slightly behind him and the tackles offset slightly behind them. But when the Eagles run the Tush Push, their entire offensive line is pressed up against the line of scrimmage. That is not the case when other teams run this play, as pointed out in a social media post by former Green Bay Packers quarterback Kurt Benkert.
Now I’m not saying ban the Tush Push.
I’m saying make them run it from a LEGAL formation.
The alignment that the Eagles get away with is actually insane. It’s why you don’t see other teams having success running the play. https://t.co/aUgWll3gYQ pic.twitter.com/jKEq5npcvU
— Kurt Benkert (@KurtBenkert) November 15, 2024
I am sure Benkert’s pleas will fall on deaf ears, and the NFL will continue to allow the Philadelphia Eagles to run the Tush Push. That’s totally fine, I just want the league to police the play for Philly the way they would for any other team.
The NFL can’t and shouldn’t ban the Tush Push. However, the league could do a better job of making sure the set-up that the Eagles are using aligns with what constitutes a legal formation.
