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EspañolNick Sirianni wants to rediscover dominance with Tush Push or find another way originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
INDIANAPOLIS — All indications coming out of the NFL Scouting Combine is that there won’t be a proposal to ban the Eagles’ signature Tush Push play this year.
Now the Eagles just have to find a way to make it work again.
In 2025, the Eagles were not nearly as successful with their version of the quarterback sneak. They hovered around a 63% success rate after converting on over 81% of their sneaks in 2024.
There were couple of likely reasons for that drop-off. For one, their offensive line wasn’t nearly as healthy last season, which hurt the offense in many other areas too. And, two, teams also began defending the play better, starting with the Lions game. Instead of trying to stuff the Tush Push up the middle, teams began to collapse the edges, attack the pushers and go for the strip.
“I think there’s some things that teams did this year that they did a good job of being able to stop it,” head coach Nick Sirianni said on Tuesday. “We gotta get back to being able to, we either have to get back to being able to be as dominant as we were at it, or we find new avenues to be able to convert on third down or in the red zone.
“And so, that’s the fun part about offseason is to be able to go through those processes. You go through them during the season as well. And I think you saw us do some cool things off of it, and you still want to be able to do them.”
The Eagles in recent seasons have taken a lot of pride in their ability to run that play to perfection but also protect it by running wrinkles off of it. They want to get back to that.
“That’s what you’re constantly trying to do to put seeds (of doubt) within the defense,” Sirianni said. “And this play has that ability. We know we have to … it took a little bit of step back and we gotta coach better. We gotta execute it better. Looking forward to seeing where that goes in the future.”
Even with a new offense, the Tush Push can be a great tool for the Eagles’ offense.
The ironic part is that the Eagles’ new OC Sean Mannion is coming from the Packers — the team that officially proposed to ban the play last offseason. The initial rule proposal last year cited player safety despite a statement from NFL vice president of football operations Troy Vincent saying there were no injures on the play during the 2024 season.
During the owners meetings 11 months ago, the debate about the Tush Push didn’t stick with player safety and instead began to delve into aesthetics.
Broncos head coach and competition committee member Sean Payton was honest about the debate on the Tush Push this week in Indy.
“I don’t think the push sneak — I think if that ever goes away, it’s not a health and safety thing,” Payton said at the combine. “We discussed that last year for two hours and we just adopted a thousand more kick returns. Which play do you think is more of a health risk? A thousand more kick returns. So I think if we choose to ever move on from that, it won’t be because of health and safety. It will just be like, ‘We don’t like it.’ Which is OK.”