This made me laugh. It’s more than a year old, and dates back to 2023, but Warren Sharp shared it this week in response to all of the hubbub currently surrounding the tush push:

Apparently the job of the rugby hooker, according to A.I., is to “hook the ball during scrums and throw the ball during line outs. They are a key player in the front row of the scrum, along with the two props.” But speaking on the push, this former hooker is right. We always ask ourselves why other teams don’t run the play as well as the Eagles, and it’s because they don’t have a QB who can squat 600 pounds, running behind a humongous former rugby player and multiple Pro Bowlers. If Josh Allen was Arnold Schwarzenegger on the leg press and scrum’d behind Jordan Mailata and company, then maybe the Eagles would have throttled the Bills in the Super Bowl instead of the Chiefs.

What’s more is that NFL data confirmed what we already knew. The tush push resulted in zero injuries in 2024:

So you can’t use “health and safety” as a reason to ban the play. And the Eagles are not manipulating or circumventing any rules in executing the play, so that excuse doesn’t work either. The only remaining excuse is that it is not a “football play,” which is nebulous and undefined. If the tush push is not a “football play,” then is spiking the ball a “football play?” Is kneeling to run out the clock a “football play?” There is no legitimate argument out there for banning the play.