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 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 2013-2016 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 long-time ban on pushing ballcarriers forward. In recent seasons, the Eagles exploited this loophole in the rulebook. 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 it in the off-season:
- 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 on Sunday that it was nearly impossible for the refs to determine whether QB Jalen Hurts fumbled, was down, or if 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 offsides 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.
- 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:
- 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 rulebook prior to 2006, aiding the ball-carrier—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.”
- Competitive fairness. Here’s Blandino’s biggest objection. He believes the tush push gives offenses a clear advantage over defenses. If the defense stands up, then drives back a ball-carrier by ten yards, the offense doesn’t lose ten yards, he notes. Instead, the ball is marked where the runner’s forward progress was stopped. But defenses can’t push their teammates forward on field goals and other short-yardage plays.: “I don’t think it’s equitable from an offensive and defensive balance,” Blandino said.
- Aesthetically ugly. As an avid NFL fan, Blandino remembers legendary moments like Lynn Swann of the Steelers balletically leaping through the air to make a diving catch. The tush push is more back-alley than ballet. “I don’t think that’s what we want to present for this game that we all love,” he notes.
The tush push has defenders beyond Kelce and the Eagles. ESPN analyst Booger McFarland defended the play on Twitter: “I am probably in the minority but I like the tush push. There is NO medical data to support injury risk therefore we are talking about aesthetics. It’s a quarterback sneak when it’s all said and done. Anyone can do it, if U dont like it, stop it.”
McFarland’s ESPN colleague Kevin Neghandi chalks up the opposition to pure jealousy. “One team has mastered it. And no one else comes close in a sport that’s about physicality. Ugly visually? Rugby? C’mon man. It’s football. Not the Eagles fault how it’s officiated. Enjoy the tush push while you can before it’s taken away cause no one else could crack the code,” tweeted the Philly native.
But as Blandino points out, the NFL got by just fine without the tush push during most of its 105-year history. In fact, one of the league’s most famous plays amounts to the anti-tush push.
Let’s rewind to the famous “Ice Bowl” 1967 NFL Championship Game between the Packers and Cowboys on the frozen tundra of Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. With coaching legend Vince Lombardi looking on, Packers QB Bart Starr used a QB sneak to win the game. As Starr crossed the goal line behind guard Jerry Kramer, Packers fullback Chuck Mercein threw his arms up into the air; a moment that was forever enshrined in legend. Many still assume Mercein was signalling a touchdown. Instead, he was really trying to show officials he was not pushing Starr from behind.
As Mercein recalled in Ice Bowl Memories, Green Bay didn’t even have a QB sneak in its playbook. The fullback thought he was going to get the handoff. When Starr kept the ball himself, Mercein wisely wanted to show the refs he wasn’t helping his QB’s forward progress.
“I thought, ‘Pull up. Don’t push him into the end zone or assist him, which was a penalty.’ I couldn’t stop. When you’re on ice, you’re not going to stop on a dime. So that was when I threw my hands up in the air to kind of indicate to the officials, if they thought I was trying to push him in, that I didn’t have anything to do with it.’”
