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Tim McManus
With the tush push under scrutiny this week at the NFL scouting combine, Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni did his part to shove back on some of the growing narratives around the play.
Sirianni called it “a little unfair” that some are angling to have the play banned because it’s highly successful for Philadelphia, adding that the idea that it’s an automatic play is “a little insulting.”
“I can’t tell you how many times we’ve practiced the snap, we’ve practiced the play — it’s not a play that’s easy to practice, so there’s different ways we’ve figured out how to practice it — the complements that come off of it that can create explosive plays,” he said.
“The fact that it’s [portrayed] as an automatic thing, we work really hard, and our guys are talented at this play, and so it’s a little insulting to say we’re good at it so it’s automatic. We work really hard at it.”
On Tuesday, Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst confirmed that his team made a proposal to ban the tush push. Outgoing Packers president Mark Murphy had said in a Q&A on the Packers’ website posted earlier this month that the play was “bad for the game.”
NFL owners could vote on the proposal next month at the annual league meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, unless the team decides to withdraw its proposal. If the proposal goes to a vote, 24 of the NFL’s 32 owners would have to vote in favor for it to pass.
The play has been examined by the NFL and the competition committee in previous offseasons, but no action has been taken.
Atlanta Falcons coach Raheem Morris indicated Tuesday that he would vote to ban the play. Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott, a member of the NFL’s competition committee whose team uses the play rather frequently, said “there’s always been an injury risk with that play” and that the techniques used have been “potentially contrary to the health and safety of the players.”
Sirianni rejected that notion as well.
“I think if you look at that, because we’ve looked into that, too, there wasn’t a lot of injuries there. I think that’s a little made up, to be honest,” he said. “Now, the numbers will tell the truth, but I don’t think there was many injuries with it this year. I can’t remember one injury we had on that play, and we ran it more that everybody else.”
Since 2022, the Eagles have run 108 tush pushes — where a team lines up one or more players behind the quarterback to push him forward against the defense — nearly twice as many as the next-closest team (Bills, 55) and 92 more than the team with the third-most attempts (Chicago Bears, 16), according to ESPN Research.
The Eagles and Bills have scored a touchdown or achieved a first down on 87% of their attempts using the play, while the rest of the NFL has been successful on just 71%, per ESPN Research.
“Obviously, I’m protective of it because we’ve had success with it,” Sirianni acknowledged. “I think the competition committee will do a good job of looking at everything, but I do feel that way a little bit, a little bit insulting in that sense of, the guys work hard at it, we work hard at it. … Just because it’s a successful play for us doesn’t mean that it should go away.”