The tush can still be pushed.
The Green Bay Packers' proposal to ban the so-called tush push play, popularized in recent years by the Philadelphia Eagles, did not pass after a vote Wednesday at the Spring League Meeting, NFL Network Insiders Tom Pelissero and Judy Battista reported.
Green Bay's resolution fell two votes shy of the necessary 24-vote threshold for ratification with 10 teams voting against the ban at the Spring League Meeting, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported.
The proposal was revised from one submitted for the league's Annual League Meeting earlier this spring and would have eliminated pushing or pulling a runner "in any direction at any time," while lifting the player to his feet also would have been banned.
The Eagles celebrated the off-field victory following news of the vote with a social media post captioned, "Push On." Philly then published a video on its official YouTube channel, titled "26 Minutes of the Tush Push."
Competition committee chairperson Rich McKay, when discussing the tush push on Wednesday, pointed to the high bar necessary to enact new rules.
"Took all the necessary vote counts and realized that was not a rule that was ready to be passed," McKay said. "I'd say it's not disappointing for me, for our committee, for the committees that did the work because it takes 24 votes to pass anything. We don't set a low bar. This is not a majority vote, which we'd pass most anything. This one this was unanimously proposed by the competition committee, this was unanimously proposed by the player health and safety committee and by the owner health and safety committee. So there was a lot of support for it. A lot of discussion about it. ... Still takes 24 votes. In this case the votes were not there so the rule will stay as it is."
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday he did not take a stance on the Packers' proposal.
"I usually take a neutral position on wanting to make sure that the process goes well," Goodell told reporters, "but also that there's a full discussion."
The QB-push play came under fire this offseason after the Eagles flew to the Super Bowl title. Detractors of the scrum considered it a non-football play, and the NFL voiced concerns regarding player health and safety, even without concurring data due to the limited sample size.
Others, like Lions head coach Dan Campbell and Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, were against a ban, noting that the onus should be on teams to stop the play, not legislate it out of the game.
The debate has raged all offseason.
The original proposal was tabled during the Annual League Meeting on April 1, and the Packers revised the proposal and presented it to owners for discussion and vote on Wednesday. The updated language featured a broader stance similar to the rule that was on the books from the start of the league until 2005.
"In our mind, as I say in those various committees, we just felt like this was a rule that was on the books forever," McKay said. "We took it out because of officiating downfield. Other things have shown up, let's put the rule back to the way it was. We didn't get the 24 votes."
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and former Philly star center Jason Kelce were among those who spoke at Wednesday's owner's meeting in support of keeping the play.
In the end, enough clubs sided with the Eagles to keep the play around.
Now it's on opponents to figure out how to stop Philly's nearly unstoppable advantage. Game on.
