Crossing Broad
It was reported on Monday that the Green Bay Packers, who lost twice to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, were the mystery team trying to ban the tush push. That sparked, for the hundredth time, debate about the legitimacy of the play, and Philly guy Mike Garafolo defended the shove on national TV while other fake news reporters were talking nonsense:
Our full segment. The Insiders embrace debate.
“You want to go on this, I’ll go on this.” pic.twitter.com/oS7bKolVXx
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) February 25, 2025
Garafolo: “How about the common sense reporter? I’ll be that guy. The Commanders jumping over the pile is a Commanders problem. It’s not an Eagles problem. It’s not a health and safety problem. You have to have the discipline to not jump… It’s something the Eagles are good at and that’s not a reason to outlaw a play. Now if you want to talk about health and safety and say Chris Jones got hurt during the Super Bowl, maybe you shouldn’t teach that technique and ask him to do that. I understand why they tried to do that, but that resulted in an injury. That’s because a guy was going sideways when everybody was going forward. I understand all of the concerns, but there’s nothing from a health and safety standpoint, which is how we see rules change.”
Ian Rapoport’s response is nonsensical. “It doesn’t look like a football play.” Oh yeah? Define “football play.” You snap the ball to a player who then tries to move it forward. Every quarterback sneak looks like rugby and every instance of a running back trying to jockey for an extra yard looks like rugby.
If you want to make an argument that offensive players shouldn’t be allowed to shove a teammate from behind, then make that argument. Change the rule to say that a player must move forward on his own and cannot be assisted. It’s the only legitimate argument you can make against the play, because there is no injury angle with the shove. In fact, you could make a compelling case that every other play in the game is more dangerous because of open-field, high-speed contact. This is a low-impact, high-leverage scrum where bodies pile on top of each other, sure, but there’s no velocity. And there’s no “unfair” angle to play. Every NFL team is allowed to run this play. If the Eagles were circumventing the rules or they found some loophole to take advantage of, it would be one thing, but that’s not what’s happening here.
People can be anti-push but they need to come up with better arguments.
The post Common Sense Reporter Mike Garafolo Defends the Tush Push from National Haters like Mets Fan Ian Rapoport appeared first on Crossing Broad.
