There has been another attempt to get the NFL to change the rules regarding the "Tush Push," which the Philadelphia Eagles have run to extreme success while other teams haven't been able to do as well.
NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said a team has proposed modifying the rules of the play, via Mark Maske of the Washington Post.
That team? The Green Bay Packers, who lost to the Eagles in the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs.
Packers president Mark Murphy has let it be known that he is very much against the play, complaining recently that it is "almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less" and citing the Washington Commanders' comical repeated attempts to stop the play in the NFC championship game.
General manager Brian Gutekunst was asked about it at the NFL Scouting Combine on Tursday and said it's too early to discuss the arguments for or against the play and acknowledged his team was not very good at stopping it.
“We’re not very successful against it, I know that, but to be honest with you I haven’t put much thought into it,” Gutekunst said. “It’s been around for a while, we’ve used it in different fashions with our tight end, so again, I think there will be a lot of discussions about it. I’ve got to look at some of the information as far as injury rates, things like that, to see. But we’ll see.”
Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris added to the discussion on Tuesday saying that he's never been a fan of the play.
“There’s just no other player in our game where you can get behind somebody and push them," said Morris, who added he'd vote against the play.
The play has become a huge weapon for the Eagles, who used it to score the first touchdown of their win in Super Bowl LIX earlier this month. They line up in a bunched formation, with teammates lined up right behind Hurts, and when the ball is snapped they are almost always able to surge ahead for a yard or two with Eagles pushing Hurts from behind. Other teams have had some success with the play, but the Eagles still convert at a far better rate than anyone else.
There was a debate about the play last offseason but it never came to a vote. The league's franchise owners would have to vote to change the rules for the play in March, Maske reported.
It seems like sour grapes among teams that can't stop a very successful play by the NFL's reigning champions. But the conversation about trying to get the play banned, or at least changed in a major way, isn't going away.
