The tush push didn’t die in a meeting room; it died on a Sunday in Philadelphia

The tush push just died. The Philadelphia Eagles and anyone else can run it for the rest of the 2025 season all the way to the Super Bowl, but after this season, you’ll never see it again.

What happened Sunday in Philadelphia just cannot happen again. As quarterback Jalen Hurts reached beyond the line-to-gain to ensure he got the fourth-down conversion in the second quarter of the Giants game, New York’s Kayvon Thibodeaux ripped the ball away from Hurts. It should have been New York’s ball at its 10-yard line.

This play will not not survive another year because it cannot. If officials cannot properly officiate the play, and if obvious fumbles aren’t fumbles, then the play cannot remain.

This isn’t about being pro- or anti-tush push. I very much believe you should not penalize the Eagles (especially) for running a play better than others. If you don’t want them to be successful at it, stop them. But we just saw a successful defense of the tush push in a major-market divisional rivalry. And it did not matter.

In the postgame pool report, referee Brad Rogers will tell the reporter that because the call on the field was forward progress being stopped, the play was not able to be reviewed.

It is unfair for forward progress to be stopped as soon as you fumble. And officials are right to blow a whistle somewhat early to protect ball carriers from getting blasted by a late hit. But a player cannot keep the ball after fumbling in an attempt to get the first down on a play that is already next-to-impossible to stop. Two more factors trending away from the tush push’s favor:

• The injury rate for this play is no longer zero. Right tackle Lane Johnson suffered a stinger early in the Week 3 game against the Rams and did not return. There could be other injuries that have taken place across the league on the play as well.
• And we know about all the false starts that have not been called this season. Officials say it’s hard to see it in the mass of players without the benefit of slow motion. If they won’t call it because they can’t, then something has to be done.

NFL team owners almost killed the tush push in the offseason when the league helped the Packers rewrite their poorly written proposal, but they fell two votes short. Maybe it was the impassioned speeches from Jeffrey Lurie and Jason Kelce. Maybe it was because the league did not have a good enough case for it to be banished.

But at this point, the case against the tush push is obvious. And all it will take is one team to propose the same language that ultimately failed in May. And if a team doesn’t do it, the NFL’s competition committee could do it.

The NFL league meetings in March, held next year in Phoenix, will see the 32 teams quorum and talk through this play again. Owners will be fatigued by the conversation again. Even if they don’t have a strong opinion about the play by then, they will simply be tired of talking about it.

All NFL teams should run the tush push as much as they want the rest of this season. It will be the last time they can.