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The tush push has survived. For now.
An NFL owners vote on a proposal to ban the controversial play made famous by the Eagles failed to get the 75 percent required (24 of 32 owners) for it to pass on Wednesday, according to multiple reports.
At least nine and possibly 10 teams voted against banning the tush push, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported.
Green Bay first proposed the rule change in April, but tabled a vote after they didn’t have enough support for the ban.
They changed the language for it to mimic the rule that was in place before 2005.
The effect of the rule as noted by NFL Network will be that it “Prohibits an offensive player from pushing, pulling, lifting or assisting the runner except by individually blocking opponents for him.”
Breaking the rule will result in a 10-yard penalty.
The Eagles had perfected the play thanks in part to the power of quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has proven nearly unstoppable in short-yardage situations with the help of other players pushing him forward.
Packers president Mark Murphy wrote a scathing rebuke of the tush push in a Q&A published on the Packers’ website.
“There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less,” he wrote. “The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner. This would bring back the traditional QB sneak. That worked pretty well for Bart Starr and the Packers in the Ice Bowl.”
While there has been plenty of focus on it, ESPN Research found that the tush push was utilized in only 0.28 percent of total plays last year, with Philadelphia and Buffalo using it the most.
The Bills and Eagles had run the play a total of 163 times last season, with Philly converting on 90 percent of its short-yardage situations.
“You know how I feel about it,” Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said on Tuesday ahead of the vote, according to the Delaware News Journal. “We were at the owners’ meetings, and we talked about how we felt about it. I don’t think anyone can question what my sentiment is, so we’ll see what happens.”
Eagles’ CEO Jeffrey Lurie had criticized the idea of banning the tush push back in April.
He told reporters back then that he didn’t “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 that 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 at the time.
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