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LOS ANGELES -- As the Los Angeles Rams defense prepares to face the Philadelphia Eagles -- and their famous tush push -- on Sunday (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC), they don't have to look far back to see how well it can work. The tush push -- or as Eagles faithful lovingly call it, "The Brotherly Shove" -- is a quarterback sneak with players lined up behind the quarterback, who push the quarterback into -- and they hope, through -- the defensive line. The Rams saw it up-close last season, when Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts scored from one yard out in Philadelphia's 23-14 victory at SoFi Stadium. It was one of 23 touchdowns Hurts has scored on a quarterback sneak over the last three seasons. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Hurts has recorded the most carries (96), yards (142) and first downs (83) in that span. "A lot of people try to emulate [the play], but they're the ones that have done it at such a high level, and it's been really difficult for people to stop," head coach Sean McVay said. The Rams did stop one attempt late in the fourth quarter in that game, something Kobie Turner said felt like "a crazy feat at the time." The defensive lineman said he can't tell right away if the defense gets the stop or not because he's at the bottom of the pile. Turner also pointed out that the hope is that the way a defense plays the tush push throughout the game can affect whether or not the Eagles run the play later in the game. "They might convert early in the game [but] the ways that a linebacker might hit the quarterback, that changes their mentality kind of for how they go about things too," Turner said. "So it's kind of like an accumulation thing and you hope that you've put enough hits on them to discourage them from running it or to alter kind of their mentality. And then that's when you can get the big stops late in the game." And despite center Jason Kelce's retirement in March, Hurts and the Eagles offense are having nearly the same success running it. This season, Hurts has generated an 87% success rate on quarterback sneaks this season, which is nearly the same he had with Kelce at center from 2022 to 2023 (86.3%), according to NFL Next Gen Stats. Entering Week 12, Hurts leads the NFL in carries (23), yards (30), first downs (20), and touchdowns (7) on quarterback sneaks. "I mean there was all this talk about losing Jason Kelce and it going downhill, but it looks like it's still pretty successful," Rams rookie defensive tackle Braden Fiske said. "...We haven't seen it all year. You see a regular QB sneak, but you don't see the tush push, which is strange. "But yeah, I mean in the nicest way I could say, yeah, it sucks." Since Fiske wasn't with the team last season, his only experience has been watching the play on film. He said he'd never seen the play run in college. "[A] 87% [success rate] is pretty crazy," Fiske said. "I mean it's just a throw your palms up kind of moment like, oh, go out there and give the best try, put the big bodies on the field and try to dig it out." The reason stopping the play is so hard, defensive lineman Bobby Brown III said, is because "they've got the numbers and weight," so the only thing you can try to do is be "disruptive." "You only have three d-linemen on the field, or maybe four at most," Brown said. "They got five offensive linemen every play. Then they have a quarterback who squats 700 pounds and the running back who squats 700 pounds and two other people pushing as well. So it's like you can't really do too much." The key to stopping it -- if there is one -- is "staying lower than their guys and beating them off the ball," Fiske said. "Which is tough because usually it's in a short yardage situation, so you don't want to jump outside to give them the easy first," Fiske said. "But if you're late off the ball, you already give them the easy first." Rams left guard Steve Avila, said the play is similar to a rugby scrum and the offensive line has to be able to "bend and get low" to create the leverage they need to run the play. "It's definitely demoralizing for a defense when you're in those short yardage and know that it's coming and you can't stop it," Avila said. What makes it even more challenging to stop is that it's not really something the Rams can practice this time of year, McVay said. "Injury is just a huge scare in those types of [situations]," Fiske said. "I mean, you got big bodies laying on each other, falling on each other. That's a lot of guys pushing back and forth, head first sometimes. It's almost something you can't practice, but you have to prepare for it in a way of just where you're going to line up, where you're going to attack it. "But if we practiced it, we'd probably be losing guys left and right. And we finally just got healthy. It's not even worth it." And so while the Rams have spent plenty of time studying ways to stop the Eagles' tush push, there's really just one way to prevent them from being able to run it. "The goal is just not let them get that close," Brown said. "...It's not really nothing you can really practice other than trying to be explosive and staying low. "It is the simplest play that you really almost can't stop."
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