Buffalo Rumblings
I guess we are just back to QB sneaks...
NFL owners voted on Wednesday to ban the tush push popularized by the Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills. The charge was perhaps strangely led by Bills head coach Sean McDermott, who allowed Buffalo QB Josh Allen and his offense to run the play multiple times in the biggest moments of the past few seasons.
Prior to Wednesday’s vote, the league’s competition committee (of which McDermott is a member) and the players’ health and safety committees voted to support the ban. Both expressed the heightened injury concerns of the play despite there being no empirical evidence to support that argument.
“I’m not a doctor, so I’m not gonna get too deep into that situation in terms of how much data, how much sample,” McDermott said at the March owners’ meetings. “I don’t think that’s always really the best way to go. There’s other data out there that when you’re in a posture like we’re talking about, that can lead to serious injury. I think being responsible and proactive in that regard is the right way to go.”
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie fought back in April and general manager Howie Roseman had a very animated public conversation with McDermott and Rams coach Sean McVay as they tried to lobby the competition committee.
“I think for everybody, including myself especially, health and safety is the most important thing when evaluating any play,” Lurie said during the pervious league meeting. “We’ve been very open to whatever data exists on the tush push, and there’s just been no data that shows that it isn’t a very, very safe play. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be pushing the tush push.”
At those March/April meetings, the voting was tabled on the proposal and the wording was changed between that planned vote and May’s vote. The Green Bay Packers’ original rule language tried to limit the prohibition to just tush pushes, where the QB takes the snap and is immediately pushed forward by the players behind him. The new language returns the rule to previous language banning any player from pushing or pulling any other player on the field.
The league now “prohibits an offensive player from pushing, pulling, lifting, or assisting the runner except by individually blocking opponents for him.”
According to TruMedia, the Eagles have run the play 122 times followed by the Bills (74), Steelers (55), and Broncos (52). Philly was successful in picking up the first down or touchdown 105 times.
