During Fox’s Sunday telecast of the Super Bowl rematch between the Eagles and Chiefs, rules analyst Dean Blandino spoke for many TV viewers when he declared he was “done” with the Eagles’ Tush Push play. 

Philadelphia’s controversial short-yardage play barely survived a challenge by rival NFL teams in the offseason. Blandino has taken a stand publicly rather than meekly covering for his former referee colleagues, the NFL, and the Super Bowl–champion Eagles.

With debate over the Tush Push growing this week, I spoke to the NFL’s former chief of officiating from 2013 to 2016 about why he’s seen enough of the Eagles’ secret weapon. 

The origins of the play, also known as the Brotherly Shove, trace back to 2006, according to Blandino. He says that’s when the league reversed its longtime ban on pushing ballcarriers forward. In recent seasons, the Eagles exploited this loophole in the rule book. But an offseason NFL vote to ban the play came up short by two votes.

Yes, the Tush Push is legal under current rules, admits Blandino. Yes, the Eagles execute it better than anybody else. (Just ask the Bills, who went 0-for-4 with their version of the play against the Chiefs in the AFC championship game.) But here are five reasons why Blandino thinks NFL owners should get rid of it in the offseason:

1. It’s become impossible for refs to judge: As Blandino warned on Fox’s telecast Sunday, “It’s a hard to play to officiate.” On one play, there were so many bodies piled up Sunday that it was nearly impossible for the refs to determine whether QB Jalen Hurts fumbled, was down, or his progress was stopped. That just puts more pressure on officials. “Good luck trying to find the ball. Good luck trying to find where the progress was stopped. We’re just guessing,” says Blandino. “Even on replay, it’s really hard to find the football. To add weight to his argument, even Jason Kelce, the former Eagles center turned ESPN analyst, admitted there’s growing video evidence of Philadelphia’s offensive linemen encroaching on the neutral zone or jumping offside before the snap. But Kelce believes critics are splitting hairs about fractions of a second. Players on both sides of the ball jump early to gain an edge. “There were at least a couple from the game that were too early, and should be called false starts,” Kelce wrote on X/Twitter. “It is an extremely hard thing to officiate, and good players on both sides of the ball jump the snap and use the neutral zone to their advantage on multiple downs and plays throughout the game. Getting rid of the Tush Push will not stop the issue everyone is riled up about.” The Eagles need to be cautious, warned Kelce, because they will be “under a microscope” moving forward.

2. Risk of injury: There’s no conclusive data indicating the Tush Push is more or less dangerous than other short-yardage plays, such as the QB sneak. But should the NFL wait until some lineman breaks his neck, leg, or back under the weight of thousands of pounds? “When you watch this play, there is a risk for injury. Should we be reactive and wait for it to happen?” Blandino asks. “Or should we be proactive and try to mitigate some of that unnecessary risk?” Bill Cowher, the Super Bowl–winning coach turned analyst for CBS Sports, agrees the play is an injury waiting to happen. As the former Steelers coach told Dan Patrick after Blandino’s comments: “I’ve been against the play for two years; I’ve made my feelings quite known. It’s not a football play; it’s a scrum. They had that in rugby, Dan. You know what they did in rugby? They eliminated the scrum. They took it out because it wasn’t a safe play. But we keep it in the NFL? Make sense of that one.” To that note:

3. More of a rugby play: The Tush Push is more akin to rugby than American football, notes Blandino. “This was never meant to be a football play; this is more rugby,” he says. “If you go back to any iteration of the rule book prior to 2006, aiding the ballcarrier—pushing the runner—was never legal. It was always the case. When they were putting together the rules for American football, that was one of the foundations.”

For more about why Blandino opposes the Eagles’ go-to short-yardage play, read Michael McCarthy’s full story here.

• A big factor in WWE moving its premium live events to ESPN’s direct-to-consumer streaming service was the promise of having promotion across the Disney empire. With the first event, WrestlePalooza, slated for Saturday, we’ve seen that in spades. Some examples include Cody Rhodes doing the Get Up/First Take/UnSportsmanLike car wash, Jey Uso throwing out the first pitch on Sunday Night Baseball, and Triple H on Good Morning America. There is also extra preshow programming, with Peter Rosenberg and Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton hosting a show on ESPN2 and the ESPN app on Friday afternoon, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. and TJ Jefferson hosting a preshow on the ESPN app, social platforms, and YouTube leading up to the event Saturday afternoon.
• Superstar singer Adele has been approached about playing the NFL’s 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, according to the New York Post’s Page Six. Her fiancé, Rich Paul, is one of the sports world’s most powerful agents. But Adele hasn’t been officially booked yet, according to the report. She might get competition from Chiefs superfan Taylor Swift. Reports have been swirling for months that Travis Kelce’s superstar fiancé would be performing at Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara on Feb. 8. Even NFL commissioner Roger Goodell admitted Swift was on the league’s wish list—but cautioned it was still a “maybe.” Said Goodell on NBC’s Today show: “We would always love to have Taylor play. She is a special, special talent, and obviously she would be welcome at any time.”
• Barstool Sports personality Vincent “Vinny” LeVine honored his late wife, Susan, by fulfilling a dream of working on the Fenway Park grounds crew.
• Longtime Steelers writer Dale Lolley passed away after a battle with cancer. He was 56.
• ESPN president of content Burke Magnus spoke to Richard Deitsch about the departure of Molly Qerim from First Take and the network’s search for the next host of the program.
• Kay Adams joined Front Office Sports Today to explain what went into pulling off the Brazil game, the secret sauce of Up & Adams, and where the creator industry is heading.

20.7 million

That’s the NFL’s average viewers per game over the first two weeks of the 2025 season. It’s up 4% from the same point last year and up 17% from 2023. It marks the NFL’s highest average viewership mark through Week 2. Since the start of the new season, the league is responsible for 13 of the top 15 shows on TV.

“The whole topic is absurd. Did Rupert Murdoch overpay when he got the NFL for Fox?”

—Mark Shapiro, president and COO of TKO Group Holdings, to Ben Horney of Front Office Sports this week on the notion Paramount overpaid for UFC media rights with its seven-year, $7.7 billion deal.