The furor over the Tush Push has dissipated, potentially for good.
No NFL team proposed a ban this offseason on the once-polarizing push-the-quarterback sneak that became the Eagles’ signature short-yardage play, and the league is not issuing any new specific instructions to its game officials ahead of this season about how to officiate the push play, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The ratcheting down of the intensity of the Tush Push debate actually began during the latter stages of last season, with its league-wide use on the decline and the Eagles no longer on a Super Bowl run. The controversy peaked last offseason—while the Eagles were still reigning champions—with a proposal by the Packers to ban the play falling just shy of ratification at the May 2025 owners meeting, followed by the NFL providing guidance to the officials in a training tape distributed last September amid a mini-uproar over apparent false-start penalties by Eagles offensive linemen on the push play going uncalled.
But all of that is a fading memory now. The NFL has no plans to issue further formal instructions to the officials related to the push play going into this season, according to the people with knowledge of the situation, and the league and the rule-making competition committee are not highlighting the play among their annual officiating points of emphasis.
There is “nothing on [the] push play” being distributed to the officials, according to one of those people, adding that “literally no one raised” the topic during offseason discussions over potential rule changes and officiating issues.
It now seems possible that the turmoil surrounding the Tush Push will fade away naturally, without an NFL rule change being required. The league-wide use of the push play has decreased steadily in recent seasons, from 164 Tush Pushes in 2023 to 115 in 2024 to 102 last season. Meanwhile, the use of the traditional quarterback sneak by NFL teams has increased from 143 in 2023 to 154 in 2024 to 168 last year.
The league-wide success rate on traditional quarterback sneaks has exceeded that of the Tush Push in each of the past three seasons. Traditional sneaks were successful 79% of the time in 2023, 82.4% of the time in 2024 and 77.4% of the time last season. The success rate of the Tush Push across the entire NFL was 74.4% in 2023, 75.8% in 2024, and 76.4% last year.
The consternation about the push play intensified as the Eagles used it effectively, having a player or players line up behind quarterback Jalen Hurts on short-yardage plays and shove him forward for first downs and touchdowns, on their way to a Super Bowl title in the 2024 season. According to CBS, the Eagles converted 39 of their 48 Tush Pushes into first downs or touchdowns (81.3%) that season, including the playoffs.
During that season’s NFC championship game in Philadelphia, referee Shawn Hochuli threatened to award the Eagles a fourth-quarter touchdown during a goal-line sequence in which Commanders defenders repeatedly jumped offside before the ball was snapped.
The NFL rule book says the referee can award a touchdown “to a team that has been denied one by a palpably unfair act.” Hochuli did not carry out his threat, as the Eagles scored on their own on a Tush Push.
“You got to take a shot,” Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner said that day, according to The Washington Post. “You got to do something. It’s a great play. It’s a great concept, great play, hard to stop. If I were them, I’d run it, too.”
Critics contended that the push play resembles a rugby scrum more than a football play. They cited the fact that a teammate aiding the ballcarrier, whether by pushing or pulling, formerly was prohibited anywhere on the field until the NFL modified that rule in 2005, deeming that the pushing aspect was too difficult to legislate.
“I am not a fan of this play,” Mark Murphy, then the president of the Packers, wrote on that team’s website in February 2025. “There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less. … There used to be a rule prohibiting this, but it is no longer enforced because I believe it was thought to be too hard for the officials to see. The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner.”
League health and safety officials said the forces involved in the play raised injury concerns, with so many players on both teams pushing against the quarterback. But they added that the injury data associated with the push play was based on a small sample and was not sufficient to merit a ban for injury reasons alone.
The Eagles and other supporters said the play should not be prohibited based merely on one team being better at it than others, without justifying injury data. Some league officials also said they were cognizant of that competitive consideration.
“It’s a skill that our team has because of the players that we have, the way the coaches coach it,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis in February 2025. “Again, there’s just so much time put into it. The fact that it’s a successful play for the Eagles and people want to take that away, I think it’s a little unfair. … Obviously I’m protective of it because we’ve had success with it.”
The Packers’ proposal to ban the play fell only two votes shy at the May 2025 owners meeting of the 24 needed for approval. The Tush Push remained legal and sparked a new controversy early last season when the Eagles’ interior blockers seemed to be getting away with moving before the snap of the ball. The NFL instructed officials in the training tape distributed last September to call “these plays tight and make sure that every aspect of the offensive team is legal.”
But the issue began to fade as the Eagles struggled at times last season, winning the NFC East but losing an opening-round playoff game at home to the 49ers. No team proposed a ban this past offseason, so the matter did not come to another vote of the NFL’s team owners. And now the league has seen no need to issue further guidance to the officials, as the debate remains quiet at least for now.
