Packers have reportedly proposed ban on tush push

Update 2:38 p.m. ET: Dianna Russini of The Athletic says that it was indeed the Packers who submitted the proposal: 

The Green Bay Packers are the team that submitted a proposal to the NFL’s competition committee to ban the tush push, per sources.

— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) February 24, 2025

Original Story

Troy Vincent revealed Monday that an unnamed team has proposed banning the tush push, according to NFL Media's Judy Battista: 

There is a proposal from an unnamed team to ban the Tush Push, Troy Vincent said. We’ll see where it goes.

— Judy Battista (@judybattista) February 24, 2025

It should be noted that Vincent previously said this to Pro Football Talk last February about the tush push: "Don’t punish a team that strategically does it well." Vincent did spend eight of his 15 NFL seasons with the Eagles, but has been the NFL's executive vice president of football operations since 2014. 

If you want to speculate on what team might have proposed the ban on the tush push, the Green Bay Packers would be an educated guess. Mark Murphy, Green Bay's CEO, said this on the team's website earlier this month: 

"I am not a fan of this play. There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less. The series of plays with the Commanders jumping offsides in the NFC Championship Game to try to stop the play was ridiculous. The referee even threatened to give the Eagles an automatic touchdown if the Commanders did not stop it. I would like to see the league prohibit pushing or aiding the runner (QB) on this play. There used to be a rule prohibiting this, but it is no longer enforced because I believe it was thought to be too hard for the officials to see. The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner. This would bring back the traditional QB sneak. That worked pretty well for Bart Starr and the Packers in the Ice Bowl." 

There's definitely a case to be made that the tush push isn't an aesthetically-pleasing play, and if you want to argue it should be taken out of the sport just because of that, so be it. But there was a thought a few years ago that the entire league would eventually be able to run this play as efficiently as the Eagles. That just hasn't proven to be the case. The Buffalo Bills have their own variation of it with Josh Allen, but as we saw in the AFC Championship Game, they are a distant second to the Eagles in terms of being able to consistently convert short-yardage situations using the play.

It will be interesting to see whether this proposal ultimately gains any steam or if the rest of the league kind of views it as sour grapes from a team that's unable to run the play as well as the Eagles.