- The Philadelphia Eagles’ ‘Tush Push’ play proved highly effective in their victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.
- Chiefs players and coaches suggested that Eagles linemen committed uncalled false starts on the play.
- Eagles coach Nick Sirianni countered that Chiefs defenders were frequently lining up in the neutral zone.
KANSAS CITY, MO – Let the debate continue.
There was no dispute about the effectiveness of the weapon the Philadelphia Eagles possess with their so-called “Tush Push” short-yardage play during their 20-17 victory in the Super Bowl 59 rematch on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium. Philadelphia lined up seven times for the rugby scrum of a quarterback sneak for Jalen Hurts and the results included what turned out as the game-deciding touchdown and a game-sealing first down.
But the devil is definitely dancing in the details. Just stop it?
‘You try to get penetration and be able to stop it, but that’s a pretty rough one,’ Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. ‘I might (have) had a couple of them that they got off a little early on, but we’ll look at that.’
Replays showed that on Hurts’ one-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter, two Eagles linemen appeared to get an early jump on the snap – without drawing a flag from officials. And the Chiefs maintained that such apparent false starts happened repeatedly.
Here we go again. The play that was nearly banned during the offseason – a Green Bay Packers proposal to nullify the play fell two votes shy of the 24 needed from owners in May – remains a serious point of contention.
‘You can’t get all the calls right,’ Chris Jones, the Chiefs’ all-pro defensive tackle, said. ‘Just because we see it, sometimes the official is 15 to 20 feet away and sometimes they can miss those small things. We think he jumped multiple times. The official didn’t see it, so it wasn’t called. We just have to go play the next down.’
Jones was hardly surprised by this issue. He contends that in preparing to play the Eagles, similar cases showed up repeatedly in film study.
‘It happens,’ he said. ‘People jump all the time. If the officials see it, they’ll call it. I don’t think they saw it those few plays and we didn’t get the call.’
Of course, conflicting perspectives clash in the trenches with this. When the Chiefs’ concerns were relayed, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni countered that officials could have called Kansas City for lining up offsides more than the one occasion it was flagged for early in the game.
‘I would argue that they were in the neutral zone a lot and taking every inch that they had,’ said Sirianni, mindful that Chiefs defensive end Charles Omenihu drew a five-yard offsides penalty on the opening drive of the game.
‘They called the first one to back them up. I didn’t think they necessarily backed up, but it is what it is. They’re going to do other things to try to stop that and I don’t want to get too much into it, but they’re doing everything they can do. So, it’s a little bit of gamesmanship on both sides with that. We know, though, that we have to be perfect with it. With how we come off the football, timing it up, all those different things.’
Proponents for banning the play have raised concern about injury risks, although the NFL’s competition committee contends that injury data doesn’t bear out the notion that the pileup plays increase injury risk.
As illustrated in the Super Bowl 59 rematch, the more significant bone of contention may come with consistently officiating the ‘Brotherly Shove.’
The final sequence on Sunday cast light on the difficulty of spotting the football amid the mass of bodies as Hurts was ruled shy of the first-down marker by six inches – with an assist from the NFL’s new virtual measurement technology – on a second-and-one play.
The next play, with about 1 ½ minutes remaining, had more gray area as it ended with Chiefs linebacker Drue Tranquill emerging from the pack with the football and Kansas City players indicating that a fumble was recovered. Replays showed that Hurts had maintained possession as he went down in the pile, but you may have had to be in the pile to know exactly when the quarterback was ruled down or that his progress was stopped.
Even Dean Blandino, the former head of NFL officiating who serves as rules analyst for Fox Sports, was taken aback.
‘I’m done with the ‘Tush Push,’ guys,’ Blandino said on the broadcast. ‘It’s a hard play to officiate.’
Which only increases the odds for more debate.
Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on social media: On X: @JarrettBell. On Bluesky: jarrettbell.bsky.social