Eagles Opponent Chimes In With Tush Push On Chopping Block, Calls It A 'Cheapo Play'

Time of death for the tush push could be any time on Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s whenever the NFL owners vote on the proposal during their spring meetings in Minnesota, where spring probably arrives late and doesn’t stay very long.

It’s the state where the Eagles won their first of two Super Bowls. So, maybe there’s irony in that since Minnesota is where the Eagles soared to the mountaintop for the very first time and could also be the site where the Eagles’ famous tush push play – the Brotherly Shove, if you prefer - will crash if it gets banned.

The expectation is it will, though, interestingly, the language remains the same from the proposal put before the owners in March during their winter meetings in South Florida. Maybe that provides a glimmer of hope for a stay of execution because the eight holdouts said the language needed to be reworked if they were going to change their mind and come around on a ban. Twenty-four votes are needed to ban the play. In Florida, they got 16.

It’s nothing more than an anti-Eagles vote because there is evidence that it doesn’t cause injury, and it’s not a rugby play, no matter what anybody says. It’s not much different than a conventional quarterback sneak. Nobody’s crying that's a rugby play.

Owner Jeffrey Lurie defended the play and its use at the last owners' meetings, saying he remembers reading a book about the forward pass and how people complained that it wasn’t a football play when it was introduced into the game.

It’s an anti-Eagles vote all the way, because they can do it better than anyone else and nobody can stop it.

Frankie Luvu tried to stop it in the NFC Championship Game, but he failed like so many before him. It was early in the fourth quarter when Luvu was flagged three consecutive times for encroachment as he attempted to stop the Eagles’ notorious “tush push” play at the goal line. He didn’t just encroach. He went flying over the center Cam Jurgens.

Referee Shawn Hochuli finally warned that if the Commanders purposefully jump offside again, he could award the Eagles a touchdown. It provided a moment of levity in what was a 55-23 destruction of the Commanders.

Luvu went on Good Morning Football Monday and gave his opinion of the play.

“I know the argument’s going to be about, ‘Hey, you guys have to stop it. Don’t get us in short yardage,’ and whatnot,” he said. “But it’s kind of like a cheapo play. … That’s pretty much a scrum in rugby. That’s how I kind of look at it. And we’ve got to have a scrum, too, on the other side. And the scrum is, we have a cadence where we all go at once.

“It’s not like you hard count and this and that, where now you’re getting us - or myself - jumping over the pile thinking that you’re going to snap the ball. That’s just my own personal opinion, and I’m going to leave it at that.”