Since the Philadelphia Eagles’ 2017 Super Bowl victory over Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, they have been one of the NFL’s most successful teams, only finishing under nine wins once, in 2020.
Thanks to their stellar defense and otherworldly production from offensive stars like Saquon Barkley and Jalen Hurts, they can now call themselves two-time champions following their dominating win over the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl LIX.
To open up the scoring on Feb. 9, Hurts rushed for a one yard touchdown, which was his fifth of the postseason.
Rushing touchdowns are not an uncommon occurrence for Hurts, as he is one of the league’s best running quarterbacks. He even eclipses many running backs in rushing touchdowns per season, finishing in the top five since 2022. Many of these touchdowns come thanks to one play: the tush push.
The tush push is a play mainly run by the Eagles on short yardage situations in which the entire offense lines up in a rugby-like scrum and pushes the quarterback forward for extra yardage. The play derives from the traditional quarterback sneak, which nearly dates back to the game’s inception. It received its playful name from the action that is being performed. The Eagles will put some of their biggest bodies behind the quarterback under center, usually Barkely and other big receiving targets like Dallas Goedert and Johnny Wilson to push Hurts’ tush forward.
Head coach Nick Sirianni has mastered the art of the quarterback sneak, making the tush push one of the league’s most successful plays over the past few years.
This season, the Eagles had one of the all-time biggest offensive lines, with stalwarts like Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata and Landon Dickerson helping raise the average weight to 338 lbs, a Super Bowl record.
Hurts himself is a big quarterback, measuring in at 6’1” and 220 lbs. Between the brute strength of the offensive line and a quarterback who is not afraid to sacrifice his body for the extra yards, it’s easy to see why the play has been so successful.
The Eagles converted on 28 of their 34 tush push attempts this season for an 82% clip. Whether they were using the play to convert on fourth down, or for a TD, that percentage is insanely impressive.
In the Eagles conference championship matchup against the Washington Commanders, they lined up five-straight times to run the tush push.
After nearly fumbling on the goal line the first time, the second time around, Commanders linebacker Frankie Luvu hurdled over both teams’ lines and received an encroachment penalty.
This goes to show how successful the play is, and how determined defenders can be to try and stop it. Defenders get so antsy trying to prevent the Eagles from converting that they often jump offsides or force themselves into unnecessary penalties. In that way, the tush push can either be used to get scrimmage yardage or penalty yardage, giving the Eagles two advantages.
It is hard to even put into perspective how successful the tush push is for the Eagles, but one statistic gives a bit more of an idea. In 2022, the Eagles converted on 25 of 27 attempts, at a rate of 93%. For reference, that means that the Eagles were more likely to have a successful tush push than NBA guard Steph Curry is to make a free throw, who shoots 91% from the line for his career. Curry holds the highest all-time free throw percentage in the NBA, helping even more to put into perspective how effective the tush push is.
The NFL and their Football Operations team even floated the idea of banning the play in 2024, after many coaches a n d players grew unhappy with it, however nothing came of it. It’s good news for the Eagles, and bad news for everyone else. The play itself is controversial, but so is the idea of banning it.
Why punish one specific team by banning the play just because the other teams don’t know how to stop it or successfully run it themselves?
It seems unfair to take away part of the Eagles schemes just because the other teams are unhappy with it. Following the Super Bowl, people are again calling for the ban, even prominent announcer Jim Nantz, who said “it feels too automatic.”
As for now, the tush push is here to stay, and unless opponents can find a way to stop it, or figure out how to execute it themselves, the Eagles are going to keep pushing their way into the postseason and try to repeat as champions.
