Officials in the National Football League must be feeling happy that in the seventh week of the 2023-24 regular season, the No. 1 story swirling around the league is not staggering concussions, or off-field arrests, or a player almost dying on the field of play. It’s not even whether Taylor Swift is good or bad for Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs (that question has been duly answered by Kelce’s unreal play whenever Miss Americana is in the building). No, the debate that is flapping the most gums is over a play by the NFC-defending champions Philadelphia Eagles called, depending upon whom you ask, “the brotherly shove” or “the tush push.”
This play, which almost always allows the Eagles to pick up at least a yard whenever they need one, especially on fourth down, isn’t pleasing to the eye, but it’s ruthlessly effective. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, who squats and deadlifts more than 500 pounds, lines up under center Jason Kelce (yes, Travis’ brother), who happens to be one of the best to ever play the game. As Hurts gets low and begins moving forward from his position behind Kelce, two other teammates push Hurts from behind. Last year the Eagles completed 90% of their “tush pushes,” and this year it’s even more unstoppable. As analyst Greg Olson said of the brotherly shove: “There are very few things you can take to the bank in the NFL. This is clearly one of them.”
Without question, the Eagles’ ability to pull this play off gives them a decisive advantage. In every series, instead of it being first and 10, it’s basically first and 9, because if they can get nine, there’s little hope stopping them from getting 10. Not surprisingly, the owners and media affiliated with NFL teams who don’t have a Hurts-Kelce combo, and aren’t nearly as effective running the play, are apoplectic and talking about banning it.
There are several arguments that they make to justify this, the most specious being that the play poses a risk to player safety. It is true that two New York Giants were injured trying to mimic the Eagles’ now signature play, but this argument is hooey. It would be like taking the quarter pounder off the McDonald’s menu because of sodium and cholesterol concerns but leaving the rest of the choices the same. Everything in football is dangerous, and there is nothing special or more dangerous about the brotherly shove.
There can only be two reasons the rest of the league would want to outlaw this play. The first is envy. They don’t like that the Eagles’ particular personnel gives them a competitive advantage. Of course, they can’t say that out loud because such an argument would sound terrible.
Do the Miami Dolphins, the team the Eagles defeated Sunday night, 37-17, have a competitive advantage because, in receivers Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, they have arguably the two fastest players in football? Of course they do. And the Dolphins are maxing out their competitive advantage every week with a high-flying offense that resembles a Maserati. The league likes a Maserati-style offense because it brings eyeballs to the television screens, and if there is one thing the NFL has always known is that it is a television program first and foremost.
Which brings me to the second reason others in the league might be opposed to the brotherly shove: It’s aesthetically unappealing. The Eagles have taken one of the most exciting, nail-biting plays in football, the fourth-and-1 conversion attempt, and turned it into a gimme.
While other teams aren’t nearly as effective running this play, there’s got to be a concern that they will get better at it, that they will begin running the play as often as the Eagles do and that the television product will suffer. Veteran NFL scribe Peter King says the NFL has made a “terrible mistake in not legislating a rugby play out of the NFL.” He also calls it an “abomination” and that in running it, the Eagles are “pushing the rules too far.” Rich Eisen, of the NFL Network, says “it looks ugly,” and he seems to object that “only the Eagles” can get it done.
I like the idea of teams figuring the Eagles out. Let defenses evolve to stop the tush push. If there is one thing the NFL does well, it’s overreact, no matter the issue. Here’s an opportunity for the league to not overreact to angry anti-Eagles hordes and media people who find it to be inartful as well as unpleasing to the eye and let the evolution of the play take care of itself.
If anything, the play is not rugby, but a throwback to football’s earliest roots before there was a forward pass and before it looked like people on the field even knew what they were doing. Usually the NFL prizes tradition. And in this case, it would be wise in this case not to reject the “tush push” as something new, but to value it as something old.
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