Not long after the Green Bay Packers submitted a proposal to ban the tush push, I submitted my own proposal to Sports Illustrated’s editorial department, requesting the ability to use the word s--- as many times as humanly possible in this column. I needed the space to call the whole thing chickens--- and bulls--- and horses---, because that’s exactly what this is. I needed the ability to call people s--- for brains and, ultimately, scared s---less, because, make no mistake, this farcical kangaroo court is about nothing other than shaken little suits masquerading as tough-guy rule followers.
The Philadelphia Eagles came up with a completely awesome, completely ass-kicking play based on their own unique understanding of the personnel at their disposal. They started with a single pusher, ran it out of the triple I formation back in 2022 and then sat around thinking of ways the team could evolve upon an offensive line that has a better pad level than any unit in the NFL and a quarterback with legs the size of redwoods.
The rest of the league didn’t panic until they collectively realized that almost no one else could run it. The play is a proprietary blend of drafting the right people, hiring the right coaches, empowering a creative space and enabling a culture of experimentation—aka the kind of stuff most of these owners don’t have the slightest idea how to orchestrate. And now, under the absolutely ridiculous cover of “player safety,” the Eagles’ secret weapon is on the chopping block.
Let’s go there first. The only people who were hurt on the tush push were a pair of New York Giants trying to run the damn thing having never actually tried to practice it other than a walkthrough. Read that sentence back one more time and tell me where the malpractice lies. ESPN reported Sunday that the NFL used “data modeling” to project what kind of injuries it may cause in the future. Data modeling! Thank goodness. Hopefully it’s from the same bright minds that brought us the advent of all these advanced statistics that tell us Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brock Purdy were the greatest and most efficient quarterbacks of the 21st century. Or the ones that have seemed to nail every presidential election since 2016 (after 900,000 simulations, our computer suggests either candidate could win … and it might be close or it could be a landslide!).
This is the most pathetic and truly American way to back your way out of a legitimate fistfight. It’s like flagging your neighbor for a shrubbery violation with the HOA because you’re mad at how badly they demolish you in the Christmas light contest every year. It’s like proposing to ban all those romance novels at the grocery store with Fabio on the cover because your wife is more attracted to him than you (anyone else struggle with this?). When we don’t like something, we don’t confront the issue at its root cause—in the case of the tush push, other people getting their behinds kicked—we search the periphery like pearl-clutching paralegals hoping to bend the rulebook to keep us from getting embarrassed. Come to think of it, this is a lot like obsessing over the air pressure of a few footballs instead of putting in the time, money and effort to draft and develop a legitimate football team.
Speaking of looks, this is the only reason the NFL would bless this kind of backstabbing. It’s not an aesthetically attractive play. It’s not something they can put on highlight videos or use to hook more people into sports gambling, and so it has to go since this sport has become nothing more than a vehicle to drain peoples’ bank accounts.
Meanwhile, any number of “unfair” advantages exist on other rosters around the league that cause a similar (existing only in our minds) health and safety concern, and I’d like to propose bans on them now:
• Ban running backs who are taller than 6'2" and heavier than 240 pounds. Sorry, Derrick Henry! But if it’s a health and safety concern to get shoved in the back, then clearly it’s a health and safety concern to be run over by a running back built like a sack of anvils.
• Ban Myles Garrett, Maxx Crosby, T.J. Watt and Trey Hendrickson. Ban anyone who is bigger and badder than the league average, because if a modified rugby scrum is a health and safety epidemic, then clearly allowing a human being who is 6'4" and arriving with the blind side force of a minivan on the highway toward an unsuspecting quarterback is a health and safety concern.
• Ban quarterbacks who played baseball and basketball as well as football growing up, because their pocket movement and body control are better and causing other teams to be sad is a health and safety risk, too.
And why stop at football? We should go back and erase Shaquille O’Neal from the record books because he dunked too much and no one else was physically capable of stopping it. The second Ben Joyce threw a 105 mph pitch last year for the Los Angeles Angels, he should have been escorted from the stadium in handcuffs.
I mean, seriously. Health and safety concerns! This is the same league full of players and coaches who laughed off the usage of the Guardian Cap. If we really cared about health and safety, there are 1,000 football actions we could ban before starting to take aim at a one-yard quarterback sneak that the Super Bowl champions practice harder than you do.
How about we get officials to consistently flag blatant helmet-to-helmet collisions, not just when their game is in prime time? I’ll bet that would protect a bunch more people. How about we invest in field turf that isn’t just a sewn-together spiderweb of synthetic gobbledygook that causes more soft tissue injuries than the 40-and-over JCC basketball league? Why do we, as a league, time and time again, get sucked up into these pathetic little congressional pissing matches instead of ignoring real-deal legislation that could actually improve football?
How are we arguing about this before solving the onside kick? How are we fighting about this before unifying our overtime rules? How are we legislating this before taking aim at the Wild West that is pre-legal tampering free agency?
If, indeed, a ban passes, the only way we come out of it with even the slightest hint of justice is by giving the Eagles draft pick compensation for their troubles. The Eagles very likely selected some players at least in some small part because they could contribute to the play. Allow them to hand in receipts and get reimbursed for this. The tush push combines everything we used to covet and value about professional football. This is a game that celebrates teamwork, physicality and ingenuity. The tush push is all those things.
Sadly, the tush push is not for everyone, which is why we’ve arrived at this place of complete and total ridiculousness; which is why a bunch of cowards are trying to shut it down, fearful of some nonexistent injury bogeyman. If the entire league could run this play with regularity and we wanted to axe it like college lacrosse spiked the Air Gait (check it out, it’s awesome)? Fine. When it represents a unique advantage that threatens the NFL’s transformation into a 150-point-per-game flag league, or makes some billion-dollar suit a little blushed in the owner’s suite? Apparently, it has to go.
I would say this is one of the sadder moments in football that I can remember over the past few years, though it's part and parcel with the way we have destroyed most of our traditions—not all at once, but one corny bit of legislation at a time.
But it helps to remember that the more we try to ban certain plays or strategies, the less it becomes football at all. Then, it’s just bulls---.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Banning the Tush Push Would Be Cowardly and Tragic for the NFL.
