Push No More?

The Philadelphia Eagles’ offense might be forced to find a new signature play in 2023.

The NFL Competition Committee is looking into eliminating what has been termed as the “tush push,” in which a typical quarterback sneak is aided by players behind them appearing to push the quarterback through the line of scrimmage.

Troy Vincent said committee discussed QB push/sneak at length. Will revisit the topic at later meeting next month. Some argued it should be allowed and anticipate more offensive plays springing from it.

— Judy Battista (@judybattista) February 26, 2023

The Eagles saw major success with this play with the combined strength of QB Jalen Hurts and the offensive line. A 4th-and-1 was almost guaranteed to lead to a first down.

In a press conference at the 2023 NFL Combine, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said the play would also help them confuse defenses.

“It was a very successful play for us, but it wasn’t the only thing we were doing off of there,” he said. “We had some exciting plays that came off of it when the defense was just trying to stop the play they thought was coming.”

Sirianni further defended the play and said there was more to it than pure strength.

“I don’t get a vote, but I thought there was a lot of hard work that went into it and a lot of technique and fundamentals that go into it as far as how are guys block it,” Sirianni said. We’ll do whatever the rules say to do obviously, but we had a lot of fun coming up with those plays and practicing them.”

– Benjamin Paul is a staff writer for InsideTheBirds.com.

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