Tush Push
The Tush Push, also known as the Brotherly Shove, is an American football play popularized by the Philadelphia Eagles. It is a variation of the traditional quarterback sneak, in which the quarterback takes the snap and immediately drives forward while the offensive line is also surging forward. In the Eagles' version, additional players line up behind the quarterback and physically push him forward as the offensive line surges ahead. It is typically used in short-yardage situations, most commonly within 1 to 2 yards of the goal line or First Down marker.
The Eagles first attempted the Tush Push in 2021 with Jalen Hurts as their quarterback. Since 2022, the Eagles have regularly executed the Tush Push with notable efficiency, making it a key part of their offensive strategy and contributing to their appearances in Super Bowl LVII and Super Bowl LIX, the latter of which they won. Other teams in the NFL and college football such as the Buffalo Bills have tried to replicate the play with varying degrees of success. However, due to increased officiating scrutiny and defensive adjustments, the play was noted to decline in effectiveness by 2025.
The play has drawn controversy, with fans, players, coaches, team executives and pundits calling for it to be banned. Critics argue that it creates an unfair advantage, causes difficulty for referees to officiate, poses safety risks, and decreases the watchability of the sport due to its high success rate. It has also been compared to the flying wedge, a similar play banned for over a century due to causing numerous injuries and fatalities. Supporters contend that it is legal, available to all teams, and should not be banned simply due to the Eagles' effectiveness running it.
Background
The Tush Push is a variation of the quarterback sneak, which is a basic play in American football where the quarterback lines up directly behind the center, takes the snap, and immediately dives or pushes forward behind the offensive line, who simultaneously move forward. The play is designed to gain a short distance, usually to convert a 3rd or 4th down and inches, or to score near the goal line. In the case of the Tush Push, a player, usually the quarterback, is pushed from behind by one or two of his own teammates as he and the offensive line simultaneously drive forward after being lined up in tight formation. This pushing motion and the resulting formation has often been compared to several different rugby union forms of gameplay, such as the ruck, scrum, driving maul, and pick-and-go.Origins
The play's origins trace back decades to the innovative coaching of Bill Snyder at Kansas State University. Starting around 2005, Snyder began experimenting with assisted quarterback sneaks, recognizing the potential for maximizing short-yardage efficiency. His approach was characteristically methodical–identifying a strategic advantage and refining it through systematic implementation. From 2015 to 2018, Snyder's offensive coordinator Dana Dimel played a crucial role in implementing and developing the early version of the play. The play and its nickname can also be traced to the Bush push, where University of Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart scored a last-second touchdown against the University of Notre Dame in 2005 thanks to a shove from teammate Reggie Bush; the NFL removed the prohibition on pushing ball-carriers the next year.In 2018, Minnesota Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr was overheard theorizing an early version of the play, suggesting a large quarterback should be pushed from behind by one or two other large teammates during short-yardage situations. The Indianapolis Colts ran a variation of the play during Week 10 of the 2020 season against the Tennessee Titans, when backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett, who weighed, was put in the game and ran in for a touchdown at the 1-yard line. Nick Sirianni, their offensive coordinator at the time, would join the Philadelphia Eagles as head coach the next year. He later credited Brissett and Colts head coach Frank Reich for inspiring the play, along with his future Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland and their former quarterback Carson Wentz.
Implementation by the Philadelphia Eagles
Sirianni introduced the play's concept to the Eagles upon joining the team in 2021. The team ran its first iteration in Week 5 against the Carolina Panthers, when Eagles fullback Jack Stoll pushed quarterback Jalen Hurts from behind to get him over the goal line. The team ran it again in Week 11, in a home game against the New Orleans Saints, this time with tight end Dallas Goedert motioning across the formation before settling in directly behind Hurts. When the ball was snapped, Goedert pushed Hurts to help get the yard needed to successfully convert for a first down.The Eagles continued to incorporate the play during the 2022 season, trying out different variations in short-yardage situations. Then-Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen later cited their Week 5 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals as a turning point. Initially, it was merely one of the Eagles' many short-yardage plays, but after successfully using it to make five out of six first-down conversions against the Cardinals, the team decided to make it their singular focus in those situations. During the next week's game against the Dallas Cowboys, the team additionally lined up a running back behind Hurts, resulting in the now-familiar formation of two players on each of the quarterback's hips. Following the season's end, Stoutland recruited Scottish rugby coach Richie Gray into the Eagles organization to refine the play's technique.
League-wide usage and play variations
The controversial play became widely known as the "Tush Push", as well as the "Brotherly Shove", which is a play on the "City of Brotherly Love" nickname for Philadelphia. The league quickly began to take notice of the play's effectiveness, and several teams would attempt to emulate the Tush Push with their own personnel, notably the Buffalo Bills with their quarterback Josh Allen. By the end of the 2022 NFL season, the Eagles had ran the play 39 times, the Bills 26 and the rest of league a combined 36 times. The Bills would later notably use the play in the 2025 AFC Wild Card Game to push Allen for 10 yards on a 4th-and-1 on the Jacksonville Jaguars' 11 yard line to convert a first down, and then again on the next play to score the game-winning touchdown.After successfully incorporating the play into their offensive playbook, the Eagles began implementing new variations to further confuse the defense. During the 2024 NFC Championship Game the Eagles incorporated a hard count into the play, resulting in the opposing Washington Commanders drawing three consecutive encroachment penalties. Commanders linebacker Frankie Luvu received a disqualification warning after getting called for the first two penalties during this sequence, and after the Commanders were penalized for the third time, the referee warned that a touchdown would be automatically awarded to the Eagles if it happened again. In a 2025 Week 4 match against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Eagles ran two variations when lining up in the Tush Push formation. The first occurred on first-and-goal when Hurts threw the ball underhand to Goedert, who followed a set of blockers into the end zone, and the second occurred during a third-and-1 near their opponent's goal line, when Hurts broke the formation to hand the ball off to Barkley, who ran a jet sweep for an easy uncontested touchdown. The Pittsburgh Steelers, who had implemented the Tush Push into their own offensive game plan using fullback/tight end Connor Heyward to snap and run the ball, would run a similar variation of the play later that season against the Chicago Bears when Hayward handed the ball to his running back for a 55-yard gain rather than attempting to convert the first down himself.
Ban attempts
In February 2025, the Green Bay Packers submitted a proposal to the NFL's competition committee to ban the Tush Push, with the play being a topic of discussion at the Annual League Meeting in March. Sirianni spoke against the ban, calling it "a little unfair" to target the play merely for the fact that it was highly successful for Philadelphia, and added that the team had worked tirelessly to perfect it. Other teams opposed banning, as some had begun experimenting with the play themselves. On April 1, 2025, the league declined to hold a formal vote on the Packers' proposed ban after an informal poll showed the teams to be evenly divided on the issue, short of the 3/4 majority that would have been needed to implement the ban.A second attempt to ban the play was submitted, also by the Packers on May 21, 2025, during the league's annual spring meetings. Eagles owner Jeff Lurie and former Eagles center Jason Kelce defended the play during the meeting, emphasizing the importance of its safety. The attempt was two votes short, receiving 22 of 24 needed to ban the play. The other nine teams aside from the Eagles that voted against banning the play were Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, and Tennessee Titans. Lions head coach Dan Campbell attributed being a "purist" of the sport as his reason for keeping the play legal, stating "if you take something out of the game, then you take another thing out of the game, then pretty soon you're not wearing pads, and then you're playing 30 minutes. A team found a niche, they're good at it. It's unique, it's physical. I don't want to take anything else out of the game - I just want to leave the game alone."
Packers CEO and president Mark Murphy, who authored the proposal to ban the play, stepped down from his position in July, requiring a new ban proposal to have a new author, more support, and more votes. Despite the Tush Push remaining legal, Kelce predicted that the play would eventually be banned, saying "I think that there's a lot of people within the league, at multiple levels, that want the play to be gone, which is fine. I think will still go back to running quarterback sneak, and I'm sure they'll figure out ways to be successful. I'm not really that concerned with it, to be very candid."