Packers’ Proposal to Ban Eagles’ Tush Push Fails Again

So, the Tush Push – aka the Brotherly Shove – will live on for at least another season. The Packers were the public face of the NFL’s effort to kill the play. Their original proposal stalled at the NFL owners meetings last month, and their revised proposal fell just short at the league meeting in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, the Lions’ proposal to change playoff seeding was taken off the table because it didn’t have enough votes.

The Tush Push revision wasn’t aimed entirely at the play. Rather, it attempted to ban “an offensive player from pushing, pulling, lifting, or assisting the runner except by individually blocking opponents for him.” Eliminated from the original proposal is the phrase “immediately at the snap.”

The Packers injected themselves into the fray on Feb. 1. During his monthly Murphy Takes 5 column published on Packers.com, team President Mark Murphy said he was “not a fan” of the play.

“There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less,” Murphy wrote. “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.”

A few weeks later, at the start of the Scouting Combine, the Packers’ proposal to ban the play became public.

“To be honest with you, haven’t really put much thought into it,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said at the time. “I know we’ll probably be talking about that over the next few weeks before we get to the owners meetings, but really haven’t thought about it too much.”

At the NFL owners meetings in West Palm Beach, Fla., on April 1, Gutekunst said:

“Really wasn’t a huge part of drafting the proposal or anything like that, but I’m very much in support of it. I think the medical professionals at the league have high concerns about putting players in positions that could lead to catastrophic injuries. I think this is something that needs to be discussed and we need to be proactive with it rather than be reactive on that.”

Teams were split on the play so it wasn’t brought up for a vote. The Packers’ revision almost got it across the finish line. But, just like on Sundays, the Tush Push couldn’t be stopped. The final vote was 22-10, same as the final score of the Eagles-Packers playoff game.

The Eagles and Bills were the main purveyors of the play. According to ESPN, they ran it 163 times the last two years – more than the rest of the league combined. They were successful – a first down or a touchdown – 87 percent of the time.

The Eagles defended their use of the play, essentially saying calls to ban the play were sour grapes from opponents unable to stop it. Former Eagles center Jason Kelce spoke to teams before the vote.