The Eagles’ reliance on the tush push, a play they introduced in 2022, helped power them to a Super Bowl championship in 2025. Last February, a couple of weeks after the Eagles crushed the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, the Packers proposed a tush push ban.
Led by since-retired team president/CEO Mark Murphy, Green Bay lobbied to “prohibit an offensive player from pushing a teammate who was lined up directly behind the snapper and receives the snap, immediately at the snap.”
Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL’s committees on competition and health and safety supported the Packers’ proposal. Nevertheless, after a heated debate across the league, it did not receive enough votes to pass last May. Twenty-two of the league’s 32 teams were in agreement with the Packers. They fell two votes shy of the required 24.
The tush push was a legal play again in 2025, but as of September, momentum toward eliminating it was reportedly growing. However, it appears it will remain part of the game next season. Troy Vincent, the league’s executive vice president of football operations, said Monday that a new call to ban the play did not come in this year (via veteran reporter Mark Maske).
“Haven’t seen one,” Vincent revealed. “And that deadline has passed.”
The Packers’ new president/CEO, Ed Policy, and all other teams apparently did not feel strongly enough to submit a fresh proposal. It’s not especially surprising in the wake of comments that NFL competition committee co-chairman Rich McKay made on Sunday (via Mike Reiss and Kevin Seifert of ESPN).
“There’s no team proposal that I’ve seen from it,” McKay said. “So, I wouldn’t envision it. But you never know.”
As part of their proposal last year, the Packers pointed to player safety and pace of play among their reasons for requesting a tush push ban. A season has passed since then, and the league still has not publicized any health data related to the play, Reiss and Seifert note.
While the Eagles and the rest of the league may continue running the tush push, Vincent said the NFL could consider doing something “about aiding the runner. I mean, we saw players being literally picked up and kind of walked into the end zone. Is that really what we want?”
Great! Now this can finally stop being talked about.
The “tush push” is legal and should stay legal. Changing rules for the sake of changing rules is getting tiring.
So teams just had their panties in a bunch because Eagles had a great oline to do it. This season they were not effective at it, the play it self wasn’t unstoppable just certain players involved.
Oh and every team can actually run it if they want to.
I don’t support banning a play. The problem is the play usually has the OL breaking the rules and it’s rarely called. Just call the play fairly and give the defense a chance to stop it
Actually, the Opposite. The Defense is almost ALWAYS lined up in the Neutral Zone. Most of the OL issues likely occur on every single play if you freeze frame a play. The QB calls “HIKE” and they call go. Some may be microseconds before the ball moves… but nobody is freeze-framing the play.
So we’re going to ignore the center moving the ball every time they line up for a tush push? And if the center moves the ball then that negates the argument that the defense lines up in the neutral zone.
Just have a guy on each side of the QB grab his arms and legs and heave ho him over the O and D lines.
Some team needs to propose that the Packers been banned from making any more proposals 🙂