WILL THE TUSH PUSH, SUDDENLY BACK IN PLAY, BE DESCRIBED AS “A WET DREAM”?
The Eagles prevented a ban of the goal-line gut bomb, to the point owner Jeffrey Lurie referred to it as "a wet dream for a teenage boy,” and the play will continue after 10 teams defied Roger Goodell
The Tush Push has a dirtier name. For those who think the mosh-up is more conducive to Philadelphia bar life than anything deserving NFL legality — include me — the Eagles survived an attempt to ban the gut bomb and went sleazy Wednesday.
“Like a wet dream for a teenage boy,” said the team’s owner, Jeffrey Lurie, telling off a ballroom of league officials and owners.
A Wet Dream. Say that, Jim Nantz.
Seems Lurie thought the ban would happen, after reports that commissioner Roger Goodell wanted rid of the Tush Push, but he spoke too soon at the spring meeting. Nine teams voted with the Eagles, leaving the final score at 22-10, two votes ahead of the proposal to kill it. Lurie was blasted in the ballroom by Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, who pointed out women were in the audience.
“How much more s—,” 49ers owner Jed York asked Lurie, reported ESPN.
So be it. The Wet Dream lives, with Lurie targeting Goodell and Vincent for endorsing the ban. The league will keep using what is known on clean television as The Brotherly Shove, with executives from the supportive teams — Ravens, Browns, Lions, Jaguars, Dolphins, Patriots, Saints, Jets and Titans — suggesting they will try lining up massive offensive linemen. The Eagles are an inspiration after quarterback Jalen Hurts, in the last two seasons, has rushed for 22 touchdowns from the 1-yard line while his offense converted 28 of 34 total attempts last season.
What you saw was a ragbag of self-serving billionaires arguing about a warmongering quarterback sneak that resembles another sport — rugby. Basically, three-plus months after he won the Super Bowl with ease, Lurie was taunted by the growlers for standing behind coaches and players who made the outlaw call work. The leader was head coach Nick Sirianni, who arrived in town by stumbling badly at his press conference and was rewarded this week with a multi-year contract extension. The Packers didn’t like the Tush Push and called for a ban. They are Cheeseheads, as usual.
In my mind, the play isn’t football as much as Tesla Cybertrucks trying to take over the world. It’s weight-room balderdash, tried in a frat house after three dudes have downed Yuenglings and devoured cheesesteaks. This shouldn’t be part of the biggest sport ever developed in America. Is it possible enough teams were weary of Goodell’s influence and wanted to bash him? If injuries are more likely, as Bills coach Sean McDermott claimed in pushing for the ban, the Eagles haven’t had any because of the play. “I’ll come out of retirement today if you tell me all I've got to do is run 80 tush pushes to play in the NFL,” former center Jason Kelce said. “I’ll do that gladly. It'll be the easiest job in the world.”
“There's always been injury risk, and I've expressed that opinion over the last couple of years when it really started to come into play the way it's being used,” McDermott said. “The way that techniques are used with the play, to me, have been potentially contrary to the health and safety of the players. I just think the optics of it, I’m not in love with.”
A championship wasn’t won because of the Tush Push. The Eagles were angrier and better than all the rest. But the play is a design of their spirit. Remove it, and prepare for slaughter in other ways. The offensive line averaged 6 feet 6 and 338 pounds. Hurts is built like a cement crusher.
“I’ve seen some of the stuff (suggesting) it’s an ‘automatic’ play. I almost feel a little insulted, because we work so hard at that play,” Sirianni said. “The amount of things that we’ve looked into how to coach that play, the fundamentals — there’s 1,000 plays out there, it comes down to how you teach the fundamentals and how the players execute the fundamentals. I can’t tell you how many times we practice the snap, we practice the play — because it’s not a play that’s easy to practice, there’s different ways we’ve figured out how to practice it. We work really, 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.’ ’’
Said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones: “Any play that's out of the ordinary gets extra scrutiny because of the competition. That's the fun part of having these meetings, and here we are — the world champion is the main focus of the tush push, and here we are debating it and having to decide, ‘Am I really against the tush push or do I just want Philadelphia to (not) have an edge?' And I sit there and fight that, too."
Yet Commanders linebacker Frankie Luvu, who tried to stop the Tush Push when he went offside on three straight plays in the NFC championship game, called it “a cheapo play.” Said Luvu: “It’s pretty much a scrum in rugby. That’s how I kind of look at it. We’ve got to have a scrum too, on the other side, and we have a cadence where we all go at once. It’s not like you hard count and this and that, where now you’re getting us, or myself, jumping over the pile thinking that they’re about to snap the ball.”
The Eagles celebrated at the meeting by playing a 26-minute video featuring the Tush Push. No, they didn’t bring in Hurts and linemen to take another shot. President Trump supported The Tush Push when the Eagles visited the White House.
“I hope they keep that play,” he said. “I like it. It’s sort of exciting and different.”
He will have no problem calling it a Wet Dream.
Nor will anyone in Philadelphia.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.