Sportsnaut
The Philadelphia Eagles’ incredibly successful tush push appears headed for extinction after nearly getting banned in the offseason.
The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reports the league is convinced they can ban the play after the 2025 season concludes.
“Influential voices inside 345 Park Ave. still believe that the tush push doesn’t belong. Multiple people who were in those rooms during league meetings came away convinced the ban could finally happen this offseason, and now that it looks a mess on television … this may be the end for the Brotherly Shove,” Russini writes.
The latest controversy stems from Philadelphia’s 20-17 win over Kansas City, where replay showed the Eagles’ offensive line seemingly false starting while the Chiefs’ defensive players appeared to line up in the neutral zone.
Refs miss a false start on the Eagles on this tush push touchdown pic.twitter.com/3WbK8gkb5X
— Rate the Refs (@Rate_the_Refs) September 14, 2025
Russini spoke with an NFL head coach who complained about the missed calls.
“It’s getting very sloppy and officials can’t officiate it. They have to make sure no one is in the neutral zone and that no one moves before the ball. There are just a lot of missed calls on the play,” the anonymous head coach said.
Chiefs All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones echoed those same sentiments after the game.
“Just because we see it, sometimes the official is 15, 20 feet away. Sometimes they can miss those small things,” Jones told The Athletic’s Jayna Bardahl and Jesse Newell. “We think he jumped multiple times. The official didn’t see it, so it wasn’t called. We’ve just got to go play the next down.”
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid was more direct in his criticism when speaking to reporters.
“If guys are moving early, then you’ve got to call that,” Reid said, via The Athletic. “So they’ll go back and look at that and see what their evaluation is of it. It could be different than mine. Mine, I felt like the guys were moving. That’s why I was griping about it on the sideline there with the officials. But sometimes people see things different. So we’ll see where it goes. They’ll have a chance to evaluate it, and I’ll be curious to see what the response is.”
The league has since told its officials to be more attentive when Philadelphia runs the controversial play.
Philadelphia’s tush push — better known as the “Brotherly Shove” among Eagles fans — survived by just two votes in the offseason as owners voted 22-10 to ban it. Twenty-four votes are needed for a proposal to take effect.
the Eagles ran 7 tush-pushes yesterday
11.7% of their offensive snaps were tush-pushes
— Mike Renner (@mikerenner_) September 15, 2025
According to CBS Sports’ Mike Renner, the Eagles ran seven tush pushes against Kansas City, accounting for 11.7% of their offensive snaps. Since 2022, the Birds have converted the Brotherly Shove on fourth-and-one...
