PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Eagles are known for the trademark quarterback sneak play colloquially termed the “tush push.”
This season, it’s at times seemed like more of a pain in the tush than a push in the tush.
“It’s becoming tougher and tougher,” Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said in November.
The Eagles have scored a touchdown or converted a first down on 65.4 percent of quarterback runs with 1 yard to go, which comprises the large majority of their tush push attempts. They’ve also been penalized five times on the play, which would further affect the conversion rate. (Tushpush.fyi, a website that tracks the play, lists the Eagles at 61.3 percent this season.) In 2024, the Eagles converted on 81.4 percent of their quarterback rushes in this situation. In 2023, it was 92.2 percent. In 2022, it was 83.8 percent.
With the postseason beginning this weekend, the Eagles host the San Francisco 49ers in a marquee game that will put Philadelphia — and the signature sneak — in the spotlight. No player has rushed for more touchdowns than Hurts’ 10 in the past five postseasons. Of those 10, six have come on the tush push. Fans might be expecting the play, except they might observe neither the same rate nor the same efficiency as those previous postseasons.
“That play has been really successful for us for a couple years now,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “Teams are doing a good job adjusting. Now it’s our job as coaches to do our part and adjust there as well. But that’s kind of the fun part of this league, that there’s ebbs and flows with this. Offenses or defenses succeed at something, the other side catches up, and then you have to adjust again.”
The Eagles struggled with their signature “bread and butter” short-yardage play in Week 16 against the Washington Commanders. (Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
This is not to suggest that the Eagles are unsuccessful at the tush push (they still convert the majority of the attempts), nor that they eschew the tush push (they lead the league in tush pushes, with nearly twice as many as any other team). But if you’re accustomed to seeing every drive treated as first-and-9, as Sirianni famously said in 2023, this is not the team you might remember.
“It’s still our bread and butter,” Eagles center Cam Jurgens told reporters after Week 16 when the Eagles struggled with the tush push. “It might get a little dry at times, but bread and butter is bread and butter.”
The NFL considered banning the play last offseason, and one of the pushes against the tush push was that it was a seemingly automatic conversion. That has not been the case this season, to the point the Eagles have added variations to the play and have even deviated from the tush push in short-yardage situations that would have been quarterback sneaks in the past.
The change is the by-product of adjustments from the defense and more intense scrutiny from officials. There have been creative solutions to stop the play, including a defender lying down at the line of scrimmage to create a logjam. There have been more attempts to strip the ball out of Hurts’ grasp. And there has been greater attention from officials on any early movement.
“Teams this year have done a great job of stopping that play,” Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata said after the Week 16 game. “We have to do a better job of executing and go from there. I’m sure this play might not even be around next year, to be honest, just the way they’re officiating it, to be fair. … They’re just officiating it a little bit harder. So if this is the last year we get to run it, we’ll run it until we can’t run it anymore.”
The first sign of the officials posing a threat to the tush push came in Week 2 in the Super Bowl rematch against the Kansas City Chiefs. The Fox broadcast spotlighted the Eagles’ guards moving early on the play. “When you get a false-start penalty like that, it’s even harder to stop,” said color commentator Tom Brady, who is on the broadcast for the Eagles-49ers this week. “(The officials) missed that one pretty bad.” Later in the game, the Chiefs thought Hurts fumbled on the sneak. Officials determined there was no fumble. Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino, who used to work in the NFL office, said he’s “done with the tush push” and added, “It’s a hard play to officiate” because it’s difficult to see what’s happening with the football.
The Eagles have benefited from early whistles. They’ve also seen the downside when the whistle does not arrive in time. The Chicago Bears game on Black Friday was an example. Officials did not blow the play dead when Hurts’ forward progress neared a halt, and the ball was stripped from his grasp.
“It’s been like that for a very long time,” Hurts said of the tactic, and added he must control his ball security.
At the time, the Eagles had no gain or a fumble on four of seven quarterback runs with 1 yard to go. Hurts, who does not appear to be a proponent of the term “tush push,” might have success without the polarizing strategy the Eagles use.
“There are multiple ways to run a quarterback sneak,” Hurts said. “There are multiple ways to attack short-yardage defense and short-yardage opportunities. And over my six years of being here, we’ve done that in multiple ways. So, just being able to have the versatility there, when needed, and knowing we have a great weapon with what we’ve been able to do with the quarterback sneak, but being able and just have all different things available for that. Those are things that are being discussed.”
The officiating was also a factor in the Eagles’ Week 16 game against the Washington Commanders. The Eagles were flagged twice for false starts at the goal line, an example of the vigilance — and perhaps an excessive amount — used to officiate the play. The merit of the play takes on a different discussion if a 5-yard loss is at stake when the end zone is 1 yard away. There’s justifiable confidence the Eagles can gain the yard on the tush push, but if penalty flags become more of a risk, Sirianni and offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo could consider alternatives.
“I think, for sure, that the penalties play into the thought process as well because you have to be perfect on that play,” Sirianni said. “We understand that, and we got to be even a little bit better than what we’ve been there.”
The Eagles have seemed less inclined to run the play in recent weeks. They called the tush push 11 times in the first three weeks of the season. They ran the play only four times in their last three games with the starters. (With a backup quarterback and offensive line in Week 18, the short-yardage approach was altered.) One can say circumstances dictate the frequency of the play, although the Eagles handed the ball off to the running back five times on seven plays with 1 yard to go in those three games and passed the ball once in that situation. So, it’s no longer a given 1 yard to go is tush push time.
They’ve also added wrinkles to the tush push, with variations to keep defenses honest. That was most notable in Week 14 when Saquon Barkley rushed for a 52-yard touchdown on a pitch off the tush push.
“Hopefully, you soften them up, right? You soften them up for the next time you run it,” Sirianni said earlier this season when they showed creative wrinkles.
Something else to consider: The Eagles have been more effective than in previous seasons at passing the ball near the goal line. For whatever warts plagued the offense, they led the NFL with a 70.5 percent conversion rate in the red zone. Hurts has passed for a career-high 16 touchdowns in that area. Of those 16 touchdowns, three have come from 2 yards and in. Before this season, Hurts passed for four touchdowns from that distance in the previous four seasons combined. Tight end Dallas Goedert set a career high with 11 touchdowns this season, eight of which have come in the low red zone. He’s even scored off a wrinkle of the tush push.
“(O)ur red zone philosophy has changed a little bit,” Goedert said. “We used to run a lot, run the ball, a lot of quarterback sneaks, things like that down there. We’ve tried to find ways to get me the ball, which is really cool.”
Quick pass to Goedert for the @Eagles opening drive TD! 🏈 #LVvsPHI #Eagles
pic.twitter.com/rqzAl9IlGx— MiloX Sports NFL (@MiloXSportsNFL) December 14, 2025
Still, don’t write the obituary on the tush push just yet. It’s an effective short-yardage play the Eagles have created, built and expanded during the past few seasons. When Sirianni was in Indianapolis, he used Jacoby Brissett on quarterback sneaks in place of Andrew Luck. In Philadelphia in 2021, Sirianni started motioning Goedert into the backfield and the play evolved. In the 2022 season opener, the Eagles sealed a victory with a quarterback sneak on a fourth-and-1 from the opponent’s 40-yard line while clinging to a 3-point lead with 66 seconds remaining in the game. They did not “push” Hurts on the play, but they saw how they could use the sneak and added pushers. The play became a staple — one the Eagles honed and became a point of pride for the team while opponents complained.
“I see stuff that it’s an automatic play,” Sirianni said this offseason, adding, “I almost feel a little insulted because we work so hard at that play. The amount of things that we’ve looked into on how to coach that play — the fundamentals … . I can’t tell you how many times we practice the snap, we practice the play, because it’s not an easy play to practice.”
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie pushed back on criticism about the play, dismissing criticism of aesthetics as subjective and arguing there was no data to suggest that it’s a dangerous play. He called it safer than other plays. Lurie defended the play before the league vote later in the spring with an impassioned speech pointing to the pride the Eagles had in creating a play so unstoppable that other franchises wanted to ban it.
The play was not yet banned, but it’s no longer as unstoppable as it once seemed — or at least it hasn’t been this season.
If the tush push is nearing its last push, the Eagles will try to enter the postseason keeping it from becoming a pain in the tush.