Eagles News: “The idiots who want to ban the tush push keep changing their reasoning”

Roob’s Random Observations: Appreciating the greatest age in Eagles history – NBCSP
It’s so funny – and so lame – how the idiots who want to ban the tush push keep changing their reasoning. At first, it was, “Oh, it’s not safe.” Well, nobody has ever gotten running it. So then they change their rationale to, “Well, it’s just not an aesthetically pleasing play.” But it looks almost exactly like an old-fashioned quarterback sneak, which has been in the game for a century. What next? Now, that blabbering clod Dean Blandino says the play should be banned because it’s “too hard to officiate.”

That’s one of the dumbest things I”ve ever heard. Is it any harder to officiate than defensive pass interference? If the refs can’t look down the line of scrimmage and see if anyone is lining offsides or false starting, get better refs. And if that’s really your reasoning, the offsides and false start stuff has nothing to do with the actual push part of the play. It’s all so pathetic the lengths people will go to try and rationalize eliminating this play. The real reason people want to ban the tush push – and eventually will – is because the Eagles are really good at it and nobody else is. They’re jealous. Jealous of the success the Eagles have running the play, jealous of the success the Eagles have had against their team, jealous of the success the Eagles will continue to have even after they do ban the push. Because their players and coaches are just better. And that won’t change no matter what rules they come up with.

What I’m hearing on the Tom Brady problem, the tush push’s future and Caleb Williams – The Athletic
Here we go again. The tush push was nearly banned last offseason, and just two weeks into this season, the momentum against it is stronger than ever. One head coach vented over the phone: “It’s getting very sloppy and officials can’t officiate it. They have to make sure no one is in the neutral zone and that no one moves before the ball. There are just a lot of missed calls on the play.” That frustration is exactly why so many teams wanted it gone in the first place. The pileup of humanity makes it nearly impossible for officials to properly monitor the line of scrimmage.

The league’s weekly training video sent to NFL referees and teams this past week flagged at least one of the Philadelphia Eagles’ tush push plays against the Kansas City Chiefs. Officials were told to be more attentive to pre-snap movement. In May, a proposal to outlaw the play came within two votes of passing. Influential voices inside 345 Park Ave. still believe that the tush push doesn’t belong. Multiple people who were in those rooms during league meetings came away convinced the ban could finally happen this offseason, and now that it looks a mess on television … this may be the end for the Brotherly Shove. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie may need something bigger than a passionate speech from Jason Kelce to save the tush push this time. May I suggest a pitch from Kelce’s soon to be sister-in-law?

Nick Sirianni on tush-push officiating emphasis: We address it, coach play the same way – PFT
“You just address it, and you work on it like you do with every play of playing to the rules of the game,” Sirianni said, via a transcript from the team. “I mean that’s something that we talk about all the time, formationally, snap count-wise, offensively, is what I’m saying. Defense-wise, being onside, all those different things. So, the same way you do all those things.

I know there’s a lot of chatter and hype about the play, but we’re coaching it the same way we always coach it, and we know we have to be right, not only on that play, but with all our plays.” Before the training video came out this week, Sirianni said the Eagles know they have to be “perfect” on tush pushes. That’s only become more true in the last couple of days and the next one they run will have a lot of eyes making sure that they’re more buttoned up than they were a week ago.

Eagles find unlikely ally amid tush push controversy – NJ.com
But on Friday, an unlikely defender of the Eagles’ controversial play emerged. Joe Buck has a reputation for hating Philadelphia sports teams. At least, that’s the opinion of thousands of fans who have watched him call Eagles and Phillies games in the past. But Buck, the longtime broadcaster and ESPN’s Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer, stuck up for the tush push on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

GMA co-anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Buck on a Friday appearance to make an argument for banning the Eagles’ tush push. Buck’s response? “No. No, I can’t,” Buck said. “As the league says and as the Eagles say, stop it. Figure out a way to stop it. Or figure out a way to do it.” Buck continued, explaining how Jalen Hurts’ power is integral in the play’s design. “The difference is the Eagles have a quarterback who’s running (the tush push) who can squat over 600 pounds,” Buck said. “So they took advantage of a guy who’s on their team who can do it, and nobody can stop it. So too bad.”

Looking back at the 2017 Eagles-Rams game that changed everything – BGN
There are certain inflection points in our existence that, even when they may seem huge in the moment, have ripple effects beyond what we could ever imagine. For the Eagles franchise, that was Dec. 10, 2017. I think of the voiceover from the 1980 samurai film Shogun Assassin, which was famously sampled in “Liquid Swords” by GZA. “That was the night everything changed.”