The Tush Push lives: NFL not anticipating an attempt to ban Eagles’ signature sneak this offseason
After another year of controversy, it doesn’t seem like the Tush Push is going anywhere.
The Tush Push was the topic of discussion last offseason. Will the Eagles’ signature play get banned or will it live to see another season?
The play seemed destined to be outlawed — of course, we know how that ended, thanks at least in part to an impassioned speech from Jason Kelce at the NFL owners meetings. But the drama continued into the regular season, as referees officiated the play differently, sparking new controversies that had little to do with the “player safety” concerns that almost eliminated the Birds’ quarterback sneak from the game.
But now, for a variety of reasons, the discourse around the play has seemingly died down. And nobody is attempting to ban the play — at least not yet.
Over the last several years, the Tush Push faced criticism from other teams around the league, but last year was the first time a formal proposal was made to ban the play. That proposal came from the Green Bay Packers, who mentioned player safety and pace of play as their reasons behind the attempted rule change.
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The proposal needed at least 24 votes from the 32 owners to ban the play, but it fell two votes short. Despite how close the vote came last season, NFL competition committee co-chairman Rich McKay said he’s not anticipating another team to pick up where Green Bay left off.
“There’s no team proposal that I’ve seen from it,” McKay told ESPN. “So, I wouldn’t envision it. But you never know.”
Of course, there’s still time to file a proposal ahead of this year’s annual league meeting, which will take place at the end of March. But as of now, there has been no movement surrounding the play.
“The reason no one’s talking about it is because the play wasn’t as successful this year,” Jason McCourty said Monday on ESPN’s Get Up. “Defenses caught up. They figured out ways to stop it. We watched Jalen Hurts lose a fumble on the Tush Push. So now going forward, there’s multiple teams that do it now, but defenses and teams, they aren’t as passionate about it because they’re like, ‘You know what? We’ve gone back, we’ve watched the film, and we’ve figured out different avenues to stop this play.’
“So it no longer is all the nonsense that we’ve seen over the last few years where the Eagles were absolutely dominant at scoring with.”
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While the Eagles mastered the Tush Push for its first three years, making it look nearly unstoppable, they took a major step back in 2025.
In 2022, with opposing defenses never having seen the play before, the Tush Push debuted to a 92.3% success rate. The following season, teams started to adjust, and the play’s success dipped to 83.3% as the Eagles rode it to a Super Bowl berth. That conversion rate stayed relatively consistent the following year, even without Kelce under center, with the play remaining successful 79.6% of the time, according to tushpush.fyi, a Tush Push tracking site run by an Eagles fan.
However, the Eagles struggled with the Tush Push last season, converting 21 of their 33 attempts for a 63.6% success rate. That was well below the league average of 73.8%. And while the Eagles attempted the play more than any other team — they accounted for nearly 25% of all attempts last season — they converted at a lower rate than each of the other four teams that ran the Tush Push at least 10 times, all of which voted to ban the play.
* — Ran the play with a tight end, not a quarterback
One of the reasons the Eagles’ converted at a lower rate in 2025 was that league officials raised their level of scrutiny on the play, calling more penalties against the Birds after slow-motion clips of the play appeared to show the Eagles offensive line moving before the ball was snapped.
With the Eagles’ Tush Push no longer as dominant as it once was, and after years of offseason debate, it looks like the discussion surrounding the play is finally dead — for now.