PALM BEACH, Fla. -- NFL owners plan to continue discussions about the Philadelphia Eagles' short-yardage tush push play after tabling a proposal Tuesday to ban it, league officials said.
The Green Bay Packers authored the proposal, which earned the support of 16 NFL teams, two sources told ESPN's Kalyn Kahler. NFL bylaws require a minimum of 24 votes to approve a change. The topic is likely to be revisited when owners gather for their spring meeting May 20-21 in Eagan, Minnesota.
The deliberations occupied owners, general managers and coaches for much of this week's annual league meeting, mostly because it seemed to target the Super Bowl LIX champions for a legal play that has been largely unstoppable over the past three seasons. The Packers' proposal was written specifically for the play, unlike most rule proposals, and would prohibit an offensive player from immediately pushing a teammate who is lined up directly behind the snapper and receives the snap.
While there were some subjective concerns about the safety risk of the tush push, the NFL's health and safety department had no data that suggested a single injury had occurred as a result of the Eagles or any other team using it. The Buffalo Bills were the only other team that used it regularly last season, and they combined with the Eagles to call 65 of the 101 tush push runs in 2024.
But committee chairman Rich McKay said last week, and reiterated Tuesday, that the league generally frowns on rule changes that target one or two teams. The NFL prohibited players from pushing ball carriers for much of its history before changing its rules to allow it in 2005, citing the difficulty of officiating it. During Tuesday's meeting, McKay said, the Packers offered to change the focus on potentially reinstating the historic rule.
The distinction, sources told ESPN, is it would also ban players from pushing ball carriers downfield and thus eliminate the focus on the Eagles' play.
"We've been very open to whatever data exists on the tush push, and there's just been no data that shows it isn't a very, very safe play. If it weren't, we wouldn't be pushing the tush push."Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie
"A lot of teams had a lot of views," McKay said. "I think No. 1, I'm going to go back to what I said the other day, which is you'd never like any discussion in any room to be projected towards a team or two. It's never something we've ever liked doing.
"The idea [Tuesday] was, as opposed to voting on this particular proposal today, Green Bay asked, 'Could we go back and talk about reintroducing the 2004 language, study it, understand it and talk about it again when we get to May.'"
Packers president Mark Murphy later added: "Really what we talked about was going back to the language we had before in the league up until, I think, 2005 was when the change was made. So that would basically prohibit pushing the runner."
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday "there are safety issues that are being considered" with the tush push, while acknowledging there's very little data on the play.
"It's beyond data. There's also the mechanism of injury that we study ... that leads us to show the risk involved with a particular play," he said.
"There's a lot of discussion about going back to the previous rule [pre-2005]. ... The reality of that is, I think that makes a lot of sense in many ways because that expands it beyond just that single play. There are a lot of plays where you see someone pushing or pulling somebody that are not in the tush push formation that I think do have an increased risk of injury. And so, I think the committee will look at that and come back in May with some proposals."
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie confirmed the league "probably will be discussing it in May" and that the team has to be "ready for every result."
Lurie made a case in favor of the play at his news conference at the league meeting Tuesday.
"We've been very open to whatever data exists on the tush push, and there's just been no data that shows it isn't a very, very safe play. If it weren't, we wouldn't be pushing the tush push," he said.
Lurie called it a "precision play" that is effective for Philly in part because of its top-end offensive line and quarterback Jalen Hurts, who can squat 600 pounds.
"I don't ever remember a play being banned because a single team or a few teams were running it effectively. It's part of what I think most of us love about football is it's a chess match. Let the chess match play out. And if for any reason it does get banned, we'll try to be the very best at short-yardage situations. We've got a lot of ideas there," he said.
Although there was no injury data to support a ban, NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills did tell owners this week the mechanics of the play could lead to injuries, sources told ESPN. Another source told ESPN some owners warned their colleagues that a serious injury was just a matter of time.
Bears chairman George McCaskey confirmed Wednesday that his team voted yes to ban the tush push play.
"I know they say that we don't have sufficient injury data on it, but, to us, it appears to be an inherently unsafe play," McCaskey said. "I had the opportunity during committee meetings here earlier in the month to sit in the back of the room for the health and safety meeting with Alan Sills and Dr. John York, and they expressed concerns about the safety of everybody involved in that play.
"For decades, there was a rule on the books making it illegal to push the runner. It went away in 2004, and I always wondered why that happened. Rich McKay, the chairman of the competition committee, explained to us yesterday that the officials said that it was too difficult. It was like a moving scrum down the field, and it was difficult to determine if an offensive lineman was blocking or pushing the runner, so they took it out. That led to the push play. From what I understood yesterday, the push play will lead to a broader examination of whether that general rule should be brought back. We think it should be an enhancement to the game, to make it safer for the players."
The play has been enormously successful for the Eagles, who have scored 27 touchdowns and recorded 92 total first downs on it in the past three years. They scored 11 touchdowns on it with 32 first downs during their Super Bowl run in the 2024 season.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said the team coaches its tush push play no differently than standard quarterback sneaks.
"It's an exciting play," Sirriani said Tuesday. "It was really cool to hear some people talk about it this week and what they think of it, the excitement it brings to the game."
ESPN's Tim McManus and Courtney Cronin contributed to this report.