Green Bay Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy hasn’t hidden his desire to get rid of the “Tush Push” play from the NFL, and now he has action behind his words. According to Dianni Russini of The Athletic, Murphy and the Packers are the team that proposed a ban of the “Tush Push” with the NFL’s Competition Committee.
As recently as this February, Murphy publicly stated his opinion of the play and his hope that the league would “prohibit pushing or aiding the runner” on the “Tush Push.”
“I am not a fan of this play,” Murphy wrote his monthly Q&A post at Packers.com. “There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less. The series of plays with the Commanders jumping offsides in the NFC Championship Game to try to stop the play was ridiculous. The referee even threatened to give the Eagles an automatic touchdown if the Commanders did not stop it. I would like to see the league prohibit pushing or aiding the runner (QB) on this play. There used to be a rule prohibiting this, but it is no longer enforced because I believe it was thought to be too hard for the officials to see. The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner. This would bring back the traditional QB sneak. That worked pretty well for Bart Starr and the Packers in the Ice Bowl.”
The world champion Philadelphia Eagles, who beat the Packers twice during the 2024 season, popularized the play with Jalen Hurts and at least two players behind him to “push” him on short yardage quarterback sneaks. The play first gained popularity in 2023 and has continued throughout this past season. While the Packers are one of the teams that has stopped the Eagles on the “Tush Push,” it has mostly become an automatic first down or touchdown for Hurts and Philadelphia.
Even the Packers have gotten into the act, using tight end Tucker Kraft as the quarterback on Green Bay’s own variation of the play. He was 5-for-5 (including the playoffs) on sneaks in 2024.
No team has found a consistently effective strategy for stopping the play.
The Packers’ proposal will be debated and voted on during the league’s annual meeting late next month.
The question becomes: Should the league ban the play, or should teams work harder to find a way to stop it? It’s easy to argue, in a game like football, that a solution should be found on the field in the fall and not in a league meeting room in March.