PALM BEACH, Fla. — As the debate over rule changes approached this week, the NFL competition committee acknowledged an elephant in the room.
They knew that a proposal to ban the tush push was up for debate.
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Committee members knew, too, the conspiracy allegations that could follow.
After all, the tush push accounted for just 0.28% of plays last season, per ESPN data. The Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills ran the play more over the last three seasons than the other 30 teams combined.
Was this a jab at the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles? Why was changing this play a focus?
It’s proven tricky to pass a proposal banning the tush push based on competitive advantage or (effectively non-existent) injury data. But entertainment value? That’s something Cowboys team owner Jerry Jones seems to think might stick. (Grant Thomas/Yahoo Sports)
That concern influenced heavily the Tuesday decision to table the Green Bay Packers’ proposal to eliminate pushing or aiding the ball carrier. A vote was not simply held and failed. Instead, the vote was delayed to explore further rulebook language. Team representatives are expected to receive a broader, less targeted rule change proposal at a May 20-21 meeting in Minneapolis.
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Increasingly, the NFL is trending toward reintroducing a pre-2004 rule that prohibits eliminating all pushing and pulling of a ball carrier. The result is to eliminate the tush push but do so in a scope considered more fair by some.
And yet: Where the competition committee believes “nobody likes” the connection to the Eagles and Bills, Jerry Jones appears not to share their concern.
Instead, the Cowboys team owner and general manager voiced support for eliminating a tactic on the basis of a team’s dominance.
“The reason we got the two-point play is [we] said the extra point alone kicking it is not exciting enough,” Jones told Yahoo Sports. “That reminded me of how those things have evolved.
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“It was more from the entertainment standpoint — which from my perspective, is a good discussion. The fact that fans could be interested in what we do with it. We do things, and if somebody does it really well or gets an edge, we might make defensive, offensive adjustments.
“That’s the discussion.”
Multiple teams worry about risks of opponent’s overwhelming success
Jones has long been at the forefront of prioritizing the entertainment value, and thus the earning potential, of the NFL.
His reasoning also shines a new light on Feb. 1 comments from Packers president Mark Murphy explaining what ultimately became the team’s rule change proposal.
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“I am not a fan of this play,” Murphy wrote in a Q&A on the team’s website. “There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less…
“The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner.”
Murphy’s use of the word “automatic” irked Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni, who called it “a little insulting.” But Jones believes changing rules because of entertainment purposes is fair game, and that one or two teams’ overwhelming success in an area does not maximize entertainment value in a league that claims to strive for parity.
“They referenced back to precedence when you’ve had plays that have been successful on one side of the ball or other and it was mainly, in my mind, a discussion of what we’ve done when a play started becoming popular,” Jones told Yahoo Sports shortly after the vote was tabled. “It’s the nature of how the game has evolved that when something creates a competitive imbalance or competitive issue, other clubs either do it or they check it.”
The Eagles and Bills converted for a first down or touchdown on 87% of tush push plays the last three years, per ESPN data, compared to the rest of the league’s 71% clip.
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Entertainment concerns could help the Packers and fellow tush push ban advocates successfully remove the tactic from the game.
On one hand, eliminating the tush push risks a slippery slope of penalizing teams for creativity and innovation. On the other, the entertainment lens may help compel teams that want to change the rule but can’t justify relying on a data set that suggests the injury risk is inconclusive at best and negligible at worst.
Rams general manager Les Snead acknowledged Monday that “right now there’s not enough data to say one way or another” whether the tush push introduces a disproportionate injury risk.
But the optics of the play?
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“It’d be interesting if everyone started doing tush push and football became rugby and you were just scrumming your way … all the way down the field,” Snead told Yahoo Sports. “Now, maybe people quit watching and you have to cut it out because it is not as entertaining.
“You never know how that evolves.”
What’s next for the tush push?
Publicly, league officials and the competition committee are not encouraging eliminating a play on the basis of competitive imbalance.
Proponents are messaging more around game integrity and medical considerations.
McKay said safety, football and history and the desire to eliminate on offense a play that defenders cannot legally replicate on defense were the three tiers of debate. McKay and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell cited hypothetical injury concerns where proven data ended.
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“We have very little data from it, but beyond data, there’s also the mechanism of injury that we study, that type of thing that leads us to show the risk involved in a particular play or particular tackle,” Goodell said. “There are a lot of plays where you see someone pulling or pushing somebody that are not in the tush push formation that I think do have an increased risk of injury.”
The league’s rules session advanced quickly on several proposals but lasted “30-40 minutes,” McKay said, when reaching tush push debate.
“A lot of discussion about it,” McKay said. “A lot of teams had a lot of views.”
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The most likely outcome, in the view of several league sources: Club representatives vote in May to return to the pre-2004 language prohibiting against pushing or pulling ball carriers.
The rule was deleted because of concern that officials could not successfully and consistently officiate it downfield. At least some in the league office believe 20 years of advances in officiating, including the introduction of technological aids, tip the scales in favor of banning the play.
The proposal will need at least 24 of 32 clubs’ approval to pass.
But concurring opinions will count all the same. The Packers and advocates are not relying on clubs to seek the rule passage for the same reason — they just need the requisite number of clubs to approve.
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A rule could pass because some clubs want to reduce the Philadelphia advantage; others question the play’s authenticity to the game; others worry about injury risk; and still more — like Jones — worry dominance will be a bore.
“The committee will look at [it all],” Goodell said, “and come back in May with some proposal.”
