After the dust settles on the draft, attention will turn (in time) to the effort to nudge the tush push from the rulebook. Appearing last night on ESPN, Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked about the status of the play.
“For a long period of time up until 2006 that was you couldn’t push or pull a player anywhere,” Goodell said. “Is that part of football? Is that a football play? Or is it also a play that can bring some danger to it our, you know, safety concerns for our players? So I think we’ll go through the discussion again, both with the Competition Committee, the ownership, and it [will] likely be voted on in May.”
ESPN’s Mike Greenberg asked Goodell whether he has a strong sense as to the outcome.
“No, I think — listen, there are strong views about ‘is this a football play?’, strong views about the safety of it, strong views about — listen a couple of teams do it well. So what? You know, that’s a good thing, right? It brings innovation to the game. I think they’re all valid views. You know, the great thing about the NFL is we work on a vote system with 24 out of 32. We consider all those things, we have great data on this. And I think, from that standpoint, I think we’ll end up making the right decision.”
Our sense continues to be that the league office wants to get rid of the maneuver. Which means the league will be twisting elbows in support of nixing the tush push.
However it goes, it’s hard to agree with Goodell’s claim that there is “great data” on the matter. There is no safety data as to the tush push. The safety argument is based on what could happen. And it feels as if the league office is sounding an alarm in the hopes of cajoling enough owners to get behind the idea that players should not be allowed to push the player with the ball from behind.
The easiest approach is to get rid of all pushing. If they do that, will the officials throw flags for downfield pushing? They currently aren’t flagging downfield pulling. And there has been no foul called, we’re told, for assisting the runner since the 1991 playoffs.
Instead of coming up with a broad rule aimed at masking the specific attack on the tush push, let’s just call it what it is and identify a specific proposal aimed at eliminating it. The proposal the Packers made before the March meetings to ban an “immediate” push was deeply flawed.
The best outcome would be to ban pushing in the tackle box, and within five yards of each side of the line of scrimmage. To do that, however, the opponents of the tush push would have to admit that the rule change is specifically targeting a play that only two teams have mastered.
The Bills have added a player to their defense.
Buffalo has selected cornerback Maxwell Hairston out of Kentucky with the No. 30 overall pick in the 2025 draft.
Hariston, 21, was a two-time second-team All-SEC selection. He previously led the SEC in interceptions in 2023 with five.
He missed five games in 2024 due to a shoulder injury, finishing the year with one interception, two forced fumbles, a sack, and five passes defensed.
Now he will join a Buffalo team that could use a boost at defensive back.
The Bills recently signed cornerback Tre’Davious White to a one-year deal, bringing back a player who was a key part of the team’s rise under General Manager Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott.
A first-round pick in 2017 — Beane and McDermott’s first draft — White started 82 games for Buffalo before he was released last offseason after injuries limited him to just 10 games from 2022-2023.
“It’s great to have Tre back,” Beane said, via Maddy Glab of the team’s website. “You know how we all feel about him, and the business part of this stinks.
“I made it clear just because we’re parting ways today doesn’t mean forever. And not that I envisioned one year later it would work out, but no, we’re excited to have him back. Hard to find a guy who’s been here since we started this thing.”
Beane touted the “great experience” White brings to the club. Last season, White played four games for the Rams and seven games for the Ravens.
“Felt like, if you watch his film, really improved from the start of the year with the Rams to how he played down the stretch,” Beane said. “He’s another year off the injury. So, we have a lot of confidence in Tre, but no promises were made … we’re pulling for him and would love nothing more if he wins the starting job. That means we feel good with him.”
The push against the tush push is more of a push against pushing.
That’s the message that emerged when Rams coach Sean McVay was pressed on the topic during Tuesday’s pre-draft press conference.
McVay, a member of the Competition Committee, was asked a simple question: Why do you want to ban the tush push?
“I don’t know that it’s exclusively that,” McVay told reporters. “I don’t think the crux of the issue is around pushing other players, but making sure there’s clarity in terms of how it’s going to be officiated. My understanding is it’ll probably be something that’s revisited in May.”
Still, McVay has a broader question regarding how the NFL evolved to the point at which pushing the guy with the ball is standard practice.
“I think one of the things that I would talk about is it was really allowing that play to get in the first place,” McVay said. “I will acknowledge that I don’t believe in being a hater because the Eagles and the Bills do it better than we were capable of. If we executed it at that kind of level, we would probably be doing it as well. I think what it revolves around is saying we’re not in the game or in the business of pushing other people or assisting or helping the runner. We’ve allowed that into the game. When you go back a handful of years, there are some issues and conversations around the field goal block play.”
Pushing was permitted in 2006, as part of a broader change to downfield blocking rules. It took 16 years for teams to realize that pushing the quarterback could be part of the playbook.
So what will happen?
“I do think that where the issue will end up really coming to a head is talking about whether we want to prevent the assistance of pushing the runner,” McVay said. “That could take away some positive plays that we had last year where a guy gets kind of stood up and you’re pushing a pile. There was an example of that against the Jets. Even a screen that we threw to [receiver Puka] Nacua against the Vikings in the playoff game would be one of these. I’ll be interested to see. I would imagine that’s a rule that’s going to be proposed. I think it is also important.
“Everything revolves around health and safety, but also making sure that there’s clarity for the refs to be able to officiate this and then us to ultimately get it communicated to our players in regard to what our expectations are, how it’s being viewed, and what is going to be deemed legal and illegal. It was more the optics of the play that I had a problem with while also acknowledging that if we did it as well as the Eagles, we would probably be activating it a little bit more as well. I’m not afraid to admit that.”
Here’s the basic problem for the league. The genie is out of the bottle, but it’s only granting wishes in two NFL cities. That makes any effort to address the situation feel like sour grapes from those teams that can’t replicate the success of the Eagles and Bills (who run it differently than the Eagles, with the push delayed until quarterback Josh Allen has picked a lane and commenced his sneak).
As previously explained, setting the clock back to 2005 could have unintended consequences when it comes to spotting and enforcing violations that happen well away from where the ball was snapped. The cleanest way to address the potential safety issues from the tush push would be to prevent any pushing within the tackle box and within five yards on either side of the line of scrimmage.
That said, it’s much easier to sell a broader ban on all pushing as something other than a specific effort to target the tush push. Even though it’s exactly what’s happening.
Ultimately, it comes down to whether 24 or more owners will agree to it. And whether and to what extent the league office pushes for it.
Our sense is that the league is absolutely pushing for it — and our guess is that, in the same way the league office recruited the Lions to propose a change to playoff seeding, the league office pushed the Packers to put their name on the proposal that they made in March and that they’re currently reworking for May.
Cornerback Tre’Davious White knew where he wanted to wind up this offseason.
White was a Bills first-round pick in 2017 and spent seven seasons with the club before being released early in 2024. He signed a one-year deal with the Rams, but lost his spot in the defense early in the season and closed out the year with the Ravens after being traded.
That left him in need of a career reboot and he wanted it to take place where his career began. White signed with the Bills this month.
“I told my agent, man, if you can’t get Buffalo on the line, just don’t call. This is the place that I want to be,” White said, via the team’s website.
White made All-Pro teams in 2019 and 2020, but a torn ACL in 2021 and a torn Achilles in 2023 threw him off track. On Tuesday, he said he feels ready to return to form.
“Mentally, physically, I’m great,” White said. “My therapist told me to leave the past in the past, and that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna move forward, because that’s all I can do. But just knowing the position that I’m in now, the only thing I can come in and do the best that I can and showcase my talents to the best of my ability.”
The Bills probably won’t bet too heavily on White getting back to his previous heights, but anything close would be a welcome addition to the secondary in Buffalo.
