Tim Benz: Debate over banning Eagles’ ‘Tush Push’ is stupid and needs to stop
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Complaining about the Philadelphia Eagles’ “Tush Push” play is the most overwrought debate in sports and it needs to stop.
That’s impossible now, though, because according to The Athletic, the Green Bay Packers have submitted a proposal to the league’s competition committee to ban the play. So, plenty more conversations about its future are likely.
The play (also known as “The Brotherly Shove”) is nothing more than a short-yardage quarterback sneak where teammates push the QB while he is plowing forward to get the necessary inches to gain a first down.
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Under current NFL rules, it is perfectly legal. Anyone can do it. Other teams have tried, but no one does it as well as the Eagles because QB Jalen Hurts is strong with good leg drive, and their linemen are particularly proficient at getting low and rooting out opposing defenders.
Opponents of the play usually spew a cacophony of nonsense about player safety risk, its lack of aesthetics and ingenuity and claim it’s not “real football.”
“There is no skill involved, and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less,” Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy wrote on the team website early this month. “I would like to see the league prohibit pushing or aiding the runner (QB) on this play. There used to be a rule prohibiting this, but it is no longer enforced because I believe it was thought to be too hard for the officials to see. The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner. This would bring back the traditional QB sneak. That worked pretty well for Bart Starr and the Packers in the Ice Bowl.”
Former Steelers coach Bill Cowher also blasted the play on the “Dan Patrick Show” a few weeks ago.
“It’s not a football play. It’s rugby. They call it a scrum,” Cowher said. “You’re pushing people and pushing them over. If it’s just a quarterback sneak, I get it, but it becomes like a push in the back, and it’s a scrum. It’s not a strategical (sic) play, in my opinion.”
I’m not one who is ever inclined to support Philadelphia when it comes to … well … anything, but Eagles fans are right to scoff at any of those arguments. Here’s why:
• If — as Murphy states — the play has “no skill involved” and it’s an “automatic first down,” why don’t his Packers (or any other team, for that matter) do it as well as the Eagles? Why should Philly lose an effective play because the Packers want to protect Jordan Love while the Eagles are willing to risk Hurts?
• The attempts by Cowher and Murphy to split hairs between the sanctity of the traditional quarterback sneak and the Tush Push are comical to me. How is one a staple of football, as Murphy alluded to with his weepy Bart Starr reference, and the other one “not a football play”?
Are you serious, fellas? Both instances involve 10 men weighing about 300 pounds apiece slamming into each other, all in the name of attaining 1 or 2 yards of territory, while another guy fights for his life to gain every foot needed to keep a drive alive.
It’s the very essence of football! What are we talking about here?
How does Hurts getting pushed by two other guys make that play “not football” when a traditional QB sneak is fine? So what if he’s pushed? Who cares?
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• Furthering that point, what do Cowher and Murphy think will happen if the Tush Push is banned? Are the Eagles and other franchises going to start running intricate, exciting double reverse flea-flickers on fourth-and-1?
Cowher is complaining about “scrums.” All QB sneaks — even the ones he and Murphy like — result in scrums. If Saquon Barkley takes a handoff from Hurts on fourth-and-1 instead and runs right into the offensive line, that’s going to result in a scrum.
What’s the difference?
• The last argument in favor of the Brotherly Shove is the biggest one. Murphy is right about one thing. There once was a rule that banned pushing ball carriers from behind. Yet, language barring such actions was removed by the rules committed in 2005 because it was deemed too muddy for officials to see or interpret in real time within the mass of humanity that exists in NFL short-yardage plays.
How has any of that changed now? Do we really want to add one more gray area of a rule back onto the books for officials to interpret in live action? Don’t they have enough to deal with as it is? Aren’t they struggling enough with an overloaded hard drive of rules, explanations and interpretations at this point without adding another just because one team has exploited one loophole that has been present for two decades?
I certainly think so.
What are we going to do next? Are the coaches going to throw challenge flags if “Tush Push” violations are missed anytime a QB sneak or a running back plunge is executed?
Let’s be honest, Murphy and other team executives who support him in erasing the Tush Push are doing so for two reasons. First of all, they don’t want to risk their own QB’s health because there is peer pressure to do what Philadelphia does. Secondly, no one does it as well as Philadelphia.
That’s it. That’s the quiet part. I’ll just say it out loud.
The Tush Push isn’t a big deal. Leave it alone. Putting a rule back into print again that bans it will create far more problems than the play itself does.