Report: Tush Push Ban has Support Among the Cowards within the NFL’s Competition Committee

Kalyn Kahler has the byline for an ESPN report from Sunday night titled Source: Tush push ban has support in competition committee.

There are a lot of really great nuggets in here.

Among them:

“The Green Bay Packers’ proposal to ban the push sneak, popularly known as the tush push, has support within the competition committee, a source with direct knowledge told ESPN on Sunday.

Another source with direct knowledge of competition committee thinking said the proposal would be “hotly contested” among the coaches, general managers and owners as they gather for league meetings this week.”

Just so everyone’s aware of how this goes, the competition committee doesn’t vote, but it puts together a report of findings to the owners, then the owners vote. A proposal needs 75% of the vote to pass, so 24 of 32 owners have to say yes. The current competition committee includes:

• Rich McKay (co-chair) – Falcons CEO
• Stephen Jones (c-chair) – Dallas Cowboys jabroni
• Katie Blackburn – Bengals EVP
• Todd Bowles – Bucs coach
• Chris Grier – Dolphins GM
• John Lynch – Niners President and GM
• John Mara – still hasn’t slept since losing Saquon Barkley
• Sean McDermott – North Penn guy and Bills head coach
• Sean McVay – Rams coach
• Mike Tomlin – Steelers coach until they get smart and realize he needs to go

If the proposal to ban the push has “support” within the committee, then it will influence the tilt of the information that’s being passed to the owners ahead of the vote.

More:

“During the Sunday afternoon session, Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman, assistant general manager Jon Ferrari and two head coaches on the competition committee, Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams and Sean McDermott of the Buffalo Bills, gathered in a side hallway outside of the ballroom to have a private and animated side conversation about the Packers’ proposal.”

McDermott is anti-push. He’s all about the “injury risk” thing, which was disproven. The NFL data says the play is not an injury risk. The data also says the Bills ran the play 2nd-most in the league, behind only the Eagles. So it makes no sense that he’s anti-push when he runs it more than 30 other NFL teams.

“One club source told ESPN that their team will be voting against the proposal because they don’t believe the proposal is “honest about the reason.”

An NFL head coach told ESPN he thinks the proposal is motivated by pettiness, because some clubs don’t have quarterbacks capable of running a push sneak.

“It’s weak,” the club executive said. “It’s punishing a team who became excellent at executing the play. In 2022, when Philadelphia was the only team doing it, there was a concern that it made the game less compelling because fourth-and-short was no longer in doubt. Then other teams copied it, and they can’t do it as well.”

Yes,...