Back in May, the NFL held a vote on whether to ban the now legendary "Tush Push," popularized by the Philadelphia Eagles, and copied by other teams around the leagues, successfully by some, not so much by others.
The motion to ban failed by two votes. Twenty-four votes were needed for a rule change, but only 22 teams voted to ban it.
Officially, teams in favor of banning the play raised concerns about "player safety," even though no data existed to suggest that the play is more dangerous than other plays. Unofficially, many don't like the way the play looks, derogatorily referring to it as a "rugby play." And even more unofficially — but almost certainly the real impetus for banning the play — is because one team runs it at a near unstoppable level, and other teams around the league don't want to have to stop it.
Unsurprisingly, all but one team on the Eagles' 2025 schedule voted to ban the play. Those teams were the Cowboys, Commanders, Giants, Packers, Bears, Vikings, Buccaneers, Rams, Chiefs, Chargers, Raiders, Broncos, and Bills. The lone holdout was the Lions.
The two loudest teams in favor of banning the Tush Push were the Packers, who introduced the motion to ban it, and the Bills, who actually ran a version of the play more than other other team in the league in 2024, the Eagles aside.
During the 2025 Owners Meetings, Bills head coach Sean McDermott adamantly raised concerns about the safety of the play, and even added that his team would likely be just as successful running traditional quarterback sneaks without pushing the quarterback from behind.
“I’m not a doctor, so I’m not gonna get too deep into that situation in terms of how much data, how much sample,” McDermott said in March. “I don’t think that’s always really the best way to go. There’s other data out there that when you’re in a posture like we’re talking about, that can lead to serious injury. I think being responsible and proactive in that regard is the right way to go.
"That's what I'm tasked to do as a committee member, is to do what's best for the overall game and growing the game the right way. And, yes, we do a form of this play, we do it well, I believe us and Philadelphia both run a form of this play and do it well, I believe both teams can be just as good in a traditional form of a quarterback sneak and they've shown that... and that's partly why I believe what I believe."
On Sunday night, despite McDermott's concern for player safety and "growing the game the right way" the Bills ran two versions of the Tush Push during their win over of the Baltimore Ravens.
The first was a typical look:
The second was arguably even more dangerous than any typical version, with Josh Allen leaping, and a player pushing him forward while he was in mid-air.
McDermott either (a) believes the play is exceedingly dangerous to the degree that it should be banned, and is willing to put his players at a substantially increased risk of injury, or (b) he doesn't actually believe it's all that dangerous after all. Either way, by continuing to run the play, McDermott is undermining the argument to ban it.
The Saints ran it, too
The Saints were one of the teams that voted not to ban it, as Saints HC Kellen Moore ran it successfully when he was the Eagles' offensive coordinator. He ran it once on Sunday:
LG Dillon Radunz was flagged for being offsides. And really, the officials could have taken their pick on who was offsides for the Saints on the play, as at least four offensive linemen were lined up in the neutral zone.
The Eagles do tend to push the boundaries of where they line up pre-play, getting up as close to the line of scrimmage as possible. So do their opponents. If the NFL is going to more strictly enforce lining up in the neutral zone on Tush Pushes, the Eagles have to be careful about lining up past the back point of the ball. But certainly, they will gladly take that tradeoff, if the defensive line is flagged just as strictly for lining up over the ball.
Follow Jimmy & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @JimmyKempski | thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
Add Jimmy's RSS feed to your feed reader