On Oct. 9th, I was out eating with some friends when I saw the Philadelphia Eagles playing the New York Giants on TV. In the game, Philadelphia made its way to a 3rd and 1. They ran the Tush Push, their short yardage sneak, and were stopped short.

Then they ran it again on 4th and inches and converted.

Now it was first and goal. At this point, people were getting frustrated since they knew exactly what was about to happen. There were grumblings in the restaurant as the Eagles ran the Tush Push on a third consecutive play.

After being again stopped short, the Eagles ran it a fourth time in a row, and finally made it into the endzone.

By now, pretty much the entire restaurant was watching, with visible groans reverberating around the room. I was among them – who really wants to see the same boring play 4 times?

The Tush Push is a form of a quarterback sneak meant to get short yardage gains in plays with only a yard or two needed to convert. The quarterback will take the snap and immediately be pushed by a few of his players forward simultaneously with the offensive line. The high success rate of the play in getting a few yards makes for almost a cheat code.

The Eagles introduced the play in 2021 and it has since become a staple of their offense. Other teams too have tried to run it, with varying degrees of success. Eagles by and far have run the play the best, achieving the first down on 81.9% of the time it was run in 2024 according to Jeff Kerr from CBS Sports. If they’re stopped short, they just run it again, bringing its overall effectiveness around 97.9%.

So it makes football a bit more boring. So what? You shouldn’t ban the play just because few other teams can stop it, right?

Although the play works well, the biggest issue with the Tush Push is the officiating.

Back to the Giants game. The second time the play was run, one of the guards, Tyler Steen, obviously had a false start. However, because all the players on the field are close, it becomes difficult to see when the ball is snapped and the call is much harder to make.

That’s just one offender. Another difficult penalty to call is offsides, on both the offense and the defense. The defense would much rather line up in the neutral zone than give the Eagles an easy first down in hopes of stopping the play.

The second most common argument to ban the Tush Push is that the play is impossible to stop. While it may be difficult, the Tush Push is not infallible. As stated earlier, the Eagles were only successful around four out of five times. 

After last year, there were calls to ban the Tush Push, spearheaded by the Green Bay Packers, who cited player safety and “pace of play.” Needing at least twenty-four votes to ban the play, the movement ultimately failed 22-10, the funnily enough the score of the Packers’s loss to the Eagles in the wild card round of the playoffs. 

So should the play be banned?

No…unless it cannot possibly be officiated properly. As the Eagles have argued, a play should not be banned just because it is unstoppable, and the Tush Push is neither unstoppable nor should be banned for being a creative play. The Buffalo Bills have tried to run a similar play but haven’t achieved the same level of success, making it clear banning the Tush Push would be a direct slight to the Eagles.

However, the play must be officiated better, or the Tush Push will need to be banned if fairness and parity are to remain in the game. 

The NFL has stated they will try harder and attempt to officiate the play better. Otherwise, it stops being an issue with the play and starts becoming an issue with the referees and the organization itself.

“At the end of the day, there is a team that still does it well,” NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent said. “From an officiating standpoint we’re gonna try to get better when someone is in the neutral zone or leaves a little early.”

If the play remains fundamentally impossible to officiate correctly, then the league will be forced to act not because it’s boring or unfair, but because no play should be immune to the rules. Ultimately, the Tush Push needs to be fixed because it breaks the game’s ability to regulate itself. If the play simply cannot be officiated correctly, its days may be numbered.