President Donald Trump has offered his thoughts on the ‘tush push’ amid the Packers’ proposal to ban the controversial play from the NFL.
The short-yardage move, which has been popularized by the Eagles since they started frequently using it in 2022, has been extremely successful for Philadelphia and was criticized by Packers president Mark Murphy as ‘bad for the game’ in a previous Q and A with the team’s website.
But Trump has a different opinion of the play.
‘I wouldn’t ban it,’ Trump told The Spectator.
The Commander-in-Chief added that he would ban the new kickoff rule – which prohibits players on the kicking team from moving until the ball is touched or hits the ground – and called it ‘so bad.’
‘First of all, it’s the opposite of football,’ he began. ‘Second of all, it’s actually more dangerous because you’re actually going into each other without any defense or anything. It’s much more dangerous. It is so terrible.
‘You know, when in football, when the ball moves, you’re supposed to be moving. This ball is up in the air and they’re all saying it is so horrible to watch that. And I told that to Roger Goodell.’
President Donald Trump is not in favor of banning the ‘tush push’ from the NFL
The Eagles have frequently used the move since the 2022 in short-yardage situations
NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Miler previously said that returns had increased 57 percent in 2024 with the new kickoff rule, while the rate of injury was also down.
Troy Vincent, the league’s executive vice president of football operations, told reporters on Monday that the league had received a proposal to ban the play.
Following a report from The Athletic’s Dianna Russini naming the team as the Packers, Green Bay GM Brian Gutekunst confirmed the next day that that his team was the one to have banned the play.
Murphy, in the aforementioned Q and A, said the ‘tush push’ was ‘almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less.’
And ESPN research shows that the Eagles have been extremely successful with the play, which they’ve ran 108 times since 2022 (the Bills are the next-highest at 55).
On 87 percent of their attempts, Buffalo and Philly have scored a touchdown or secured a first down – while the rest of the league has done so at a rate of just 71 percent.
However, at the NFL Combine this week Eagles coach Nick Sirianni hit back at the notion that the play was a guaranteed success each time.
‘I can’t tell you how many times we’ve practiced the snap, we’ve practiced the play – it’s not a play that’s easy to practice so there’s different ways we’ve figured out how to practice it – the complements that come off of it that can create explosive plays,’ he said.
‘The fact that it’s [portrayed] as an automatic thing, we work really hard, and our guys are talented at this play, and so it’s a little insulting to say we’re good at it so it’s automatic. We work really hard at it.’
More to follow
