Is ‘tush push’ ban gaining momentum? Chiefs’ Chris Jones and Andy Reid sound off

The Philadelphia Eagles’ signature “tush push” remains one of the most unexciting plays in football, but they couldn't care less about that.

They use it because it works. Oftentimes, it serves as the catalyst that, yes, pushes them to narrow victories.

In the Eagles’ 20-17 Week 2 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, the Eagles lined up behind Jalen Hurts to propel him forward on seven occasions.

To its credit, Kansas City actually stuffed Philadelphia twice. On the other tries, Philadelphia used the push or drew a penalty to gain the yardage, including a critical conversion on third-and-1 at the Kansas City 32-yard line that sealed the game.

But Sunday’s strong reaction to the play felt different than ever before, beginning with comments made during the FOX broadcast. First, NFL legend and color analyst Tom Brady flagged what he thought to be a missed false start, and then it continued with some criticism from rules analyst Dean Blandino.

Blandino’s notable statement came when it appeared linebacker Drue Tranquill had come up with the ball on the play that put the game out of reach.

“I’m done with the tush push, guys,” Blandino said. “It’s a hard play to officiate like we’ve been talking about, so they either ruled progress or Hurts was down. (It’s) really hard to see what’s happening with the football. We’re inside two (minutes), so replay has looked at this and they’ve determined that there was no fumble.”

After the game, defensive tackle Chris Jones suggested that the Eagles’ guards were moving early on at least some of the “tush push” snaps.

“You can’t get all the calls right,” Jones said. “Just because we see it, sometimes the official is 15 to 20 feet away and sometimes they can miss those small things. We think he jumped multiple times. The official didn’t see it, so it wasn’t called. We just have to go play the next down.”

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni — an obvious defender of keeping the play legal — weighed in with his take, pointing to potential blown calls on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

“We’ve got to be very good at it because I would argue that they were in the neutral zone a lot and taking every inch that they had,” Sirianni said. “They called the first one to back them up. I didn’t think they necessarily backed up, but it is what it is. They’re going to do other things to try to stop that, and I don’t want to get too much into it, but they’re doing everything they can do. So it’s a little bit of gamesmanship on both sides with that.”

Ahead of the 2025 season in March, the Green Bay Packers submitted a proposal to ban the play, in part citing safety concerns. The Eagles defeated the Packers 22-10 in the Wild Card round on their way to their eventual Super Bowl championship.

Owners eventually voted on whether to ban the play in May, needing a “supermajority” of 24 of 32 votes. The result was 22 owners in favor of banning, two shy of the necessary 24 — and so it stayed for the 2025 season.

Now, trouble officiating the play may provide the necessary momentum to ban it next offseason.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid typically treads carefully when speaking on officiating, but he provided a candid takeaway Monday afternoon after watching the game film.

“If guys are moving early, then you’ve got to call that,” Reid said. “So they’ll go back and look at that and see what their evaluation is of it. It could be different than mine. Mine, I felt like the guys were moving — that’s why I was griping about it on the sideline there. With the officials, you know, sometimes people see things different. So we’ll see where it goes. They’ll have a chance to evaluate it, and I’ll be curious to see what the response is.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2025 at 1:55 PM.

Pete Sweeney

The Kansas City Star

Pete Sweeney is The Star’s Kansas City Chiefs insider and beat writer. He has covered the team since 2014.