The NFL continues to grapple with the officiating of the controversial “tush push” play, particularly following recent discussions among league officials. Troy Vincent, the Executive Vice President of Football Operations, acknowledged that the play poses significant challenges for referees during live action. As he explained, the speed at which such a move would need to be judged in real time makes accurate decision-making all the more difficult.
In their most recent contest, the Philadelphia Eagles executed the tush push to perfection four consecutive times. That crafty exchange put quarterback Jalen Hurts in position to score and the eye-catching play wasn’t done. One of the Eagles’ deadly plays is a quarterback sneak where they shove the QB from behind. This strategy has earned them astounding prosperity and they deploy it with chilling accuracy. The league has done a lot to mitigate potential blowback over its implementation, particularly when it comes to singling out the false start.
Following their Week 2 shocker against the then-unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs, the NFL finally had enough. They instructed their officials to crack down on the tush push play. Vincent emphasized how difficult it is to make those calls—particularly when offensive linemen jump into the neutral zone. He explained how this then creates pressure on the line judge to make accurate judgment calls.
“When the guard is in the neutral zone or someone else is in the neutral zone, it’s really hard for that line judge to identify based on what he’s looking at down the line of scrimmage.” – Troy Vincent
Even through all the adversity, Vincent explained that there are some teams that still run this play well. “At the end of the day, there’s a team that still does it well. We’ve seen other people have versions of it,” he said. He underscored the league’s urgency around improving officiating. He said they will be more diligent and efficient in spotting violations, like players in the neutral zone or jumping the snap count.
The NFL has ramped up its focus on spotting false starts in recent weeks, distributing an officiating training tape to all 32 teams. This content taught us all how Philadelphia brilliantly executed a quarterback sneak on third-and-short en route to their 20-17 victory over Kansas City. The league voted in May on a proposal to eliminate the practice of pushing players from behind. It wasn’t able to drum up the needed support and ultimately lost out on the 24 votes it needed from team owners.
Ramon George, an official in charge of overseeing these plays, commented on the necessity of precise officiating in short yardage situations.
“Anytime we have this situation we’re in short yardage, we know we want to make sure that we officiate these plays — the offensive team has to be perfect in every aspect.” – Ramon George
The NFL does not want each individual to have their own interpretation of how these situations should be handled. George added, “We want to officiate it tight. We want to be black and white and be as tight as we can be when we get into this situation.”
Teams are scrambling to change their approaches to this polarizing new play. At the same time, the league needs to make sure that officiating standards are not only keeping up with these changing ways the game is played.
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