Bleeding Green Nation
And even that one’s a stretch.
The clarion call to ban the NFL’s most controversial play reaches a head this week.
At the league meetings taking place in West Palm Beach, Florida, there are reports the Tush Push could be banned by the competition committee. Prominent head coaches throughout the league have been speaking out the last few days, both against and in favor of banning the NFL’s most unstoppable play, a key ingredient of the Eagles’ success in short yardage situations over the last three years.
The argument made by most of those in favor of a ban is injury prevention.
Never mind that McDermott and quarterback Josh Allen ran the play frequently last year, including multiple times in the AFC Championship Game against the Chiefs. Buffalo went 0-4 in Tush Push attempts in that game.
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who lost 40-22 to the Eagles in Super Bowl 59, said, “There’s a whole medical side of it. I give them credit because they’ve done a heck of a job with it. Tough play to stop. But, then you’re listening to that and the medical side and you probably could go either way with it. But I would say, if it’s putting a player in a bad position, then you probably have to do something about it. But if it’s not, it’s a heck of a play.”
Of course, it would be hard not to see the idiocy of comments by McDermott and other coaches/officials who claim they want to ban the play for player safety reasons. There is not, and has never been, any proof of increased injury risk on the Tush Push. It has been prominently used in the NFL for three seasons now, and there has not been one serious injury to occur from running the Tush Push.
In order for this line of thinking to be intellectually honest, one would have to consider banning all passing plays of more than 30 yards in order to prevent potential serious hamstring injuries, or banning running backs from cut-back runs for fear of rupturing their ACLs, or banning tackling entirely.
The Green Bay Packers initiated this latest drive to ban the Tush Push for two reasons: player safety and pace of play, obviously pointing to the NFC Championship Game when the Commanders went out of their way to gum up the works in a feeble effort to try and stop it.
Not every coach/front office in the league is a coward, though. Cleveland’s Kevin Stefanski said he doesn’t think it should be legislated out of the game, Texans coach DeMeco Ryans says it’s “tough to punish a team because it’s really good at something,” and Jets coach Aaron Glenn says “it’s our job to stop that play.” One club source told ESPN...
“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...
