The Philadelphia Eagles didn’t make many friends over the season.
Not that players will care after bruising their way to a second Super Bowl triumph.
In the modern NFL, passing has ruled the day with a series of rule changes giving quarterbacks an easier ride and leading to explosive offenses.
The Eagles are a throwback, preferring to drag their opponents into the trenches.
Vic Fangio’s defensive mercilessly line tore the Kansas City Chiefs to shreds to expose Patrick Mahomes on the biggest stage.
On the opposite side of the ball, Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley are the stars of a formidable ground game.
The offensive line are usually the unsung heroes but thanks to the controversial Tush Push, the entire league knows that Philly relies heavily on the big men up front.
With a quarterback who can squat 600 pounds, any short-yardage situation sees the Eagles use Hurts as a battering ram behind their O-line with Barkley and others giving him an extra shove from behind.
The play, which led to farcical scenes in the NFC Championship game as the Washington Commanders jumped offside four times in a row on the goal line, is so effective that some fans are calling for it to be banned altogether.
Multiple outlets are reporting that a team submitted a proposal to get rid of the modified QB sneak to the NFL.
The Athletic claims the Green Bay Packers, who lost to the Eagles in the wild-card round, are the team behind the move.
After their defeat, Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy posted that the play was ‘bad for the game‘ on the team’s website.
“There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less,” he wrote. “I would like to see the league prohibit pushing or aiding the run.”
Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson reacted with a crying laughing face emoji after seeing the Packers named.
Linebacker Nakobe Dean joined the Nightcap podcast and discussed the Brotherly Shove.
Co-host Shannon Sharpe asked the Super Bowl champ if the Eagles defense had an answer in practice.
“We ain’t doing that in practice,” Dean replied. “I always joke with some of the O-line like, ‘Y’all know you won’t be able to do that against us.’
“If somebody don’t like it, they gon’ try to ban it. I say keep it, of course, I’m a defensive guy so I don’t care.
“At this point, I’m not gonna look at stuff in the league on the offensive side of the ball and think, ‘Oh they need to ban this ‘cos it’s bad football.’
“On defense we gon’ figure it out. We get paid to stop offenses, we get paid for them not to score, so we gon’ try figure it out.”
Co-host Chad ‘Ochocinco’ Johnson thinks there is a difference in how executives and players view the play.
“That’s the problem, people in power don’t have the mentality like you have, like the players have,” he said. “Especially those that are a part of the competition committee, they tryna do way with stuff simply because you can’t stop it”
NFL owners are due to meet in Florida next month and could vote on the play
Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott, who has run a version of the play, is a competition committee member and voiced concerns about player safety at the combine on Monday.
“The way that the techniques that are used with the play, to me, have been potentially contrary to the health and safety of the players,” he said.
“You have to go back through, in fairness, to the injury data on the play, but I just think the optics of it I’m not in love with.”
Bills quarterback Josh Allen was stopped for no gain on fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter of a 32-29 loss to Kansas City in the AFC championship game — many fans felt the refs had judged the yardage wrong.
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