The NFL almost banned the tush push in the offseason.
But it survived a league vote, and the Buffalo Bills rode it on Sunday to a 27-24 wild-card win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. At least one prominent former NFL official is not happy about it.
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With 1:10 remaining Sunday and their season on the line, the Bills dialed up a play call that everyone in Jacksonville saw coming. The Jaguars just couldn’t do anything to stop it.
On fourth-and-1 at the Jacksonville 11-yard line while trailing, 24-20, the Bills lined up for a tush push run from Josh Allen. Allen not only picked up the first down. With the aid of his teammates, he carried the short-yardage play for 10 yards down to the goal line.
Allen easily picked up the first down and initially appeared to be stopped for a short gain inside the Jacksonville 10.
But he kept moving his feet toward the end zone with an escort of three of his teammates at his back, and officials initially signaled a touchdown on the field.
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Replay review showed that Allen was clearly down short of the end zone. But on the next play, Allen snuck it in from the 1, and the Bills took a 27-24 lead.
Cole Bishop intercepted Trevor Lawrence on the next Jacksonville snap to seal the win and a trip for Buffalo to either Denver or New England in the divisional round.
Former NFL official lashes out at tush push after Allen’s big gain
Retired NFL official Terry McAuley now works as a rules analyst for NBC’s and Amazon’s NFL broadcasts. He wasn’t working Sunday’s game that aired on CBS. But he has strong thoughts about the legality of Allen’s tush push and posted them on social media.
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In short, he’s not a fan.
“I very much hope the NFL Competition Committee addresses this in the offseason,” McAuley wrote. “This just cannot be a legal play any more. “Now, only pulling a runner is illegal. All pushing, pulling, or lifting a runner by a teammate should be illegal.”
McAuley pointed to a section of the NFL rulebook addressing “assisting the runner” in which it’s deemed illegal for a teammate to “pull a runner in any direction at any time.”
Article 4. Assisting The Runner And Interlocking Interference
(a) pull a runner in any direction at any time;
(b) use interlocking interference, by grasping a teammate or by using his hands or arms to encircle the body of a teammate in an effort to block an opponent; or
(c) push or throw his body against a teammate to aid him in an attempt to obstruct an opponent or to recover a loose ball.
Per this section of the rulebook, Allen’s run was legal. Nobody pulled him toward the goal line. But McAuley wants to see pushing ball carriers likewise explicitly banned by the NFL.
That would require another league vote after owners fell two votes short of banning it last offseason. Twenty-two league owners voted in favor of banning the tush push in a vote that requires 24 of 32 to enact a rule change.
Historic tush push
Like it or not, Allen’s tush-push-aided sneak was one of the most impactful in modern NFL history.
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Per NextGen stats, the Bills had a win probability of 27.5% prior to snapping the ball on fourth down. By the time Allen was tackled short of the goal line, that probability spiked to 77.4%. The 49.9% spike in Buffalo’s favor stands as the largest jump in win probability on a quarterback sneak since NextGen Stats started tracking data in 2016.
And the tush push, which is both loathed and loved around the league depending on perspective, has made a major impact on the NFL playoffs in the opening round.
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