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While there is a potential Tush Push ban coming from the NFL, former Minnesota Vikings star Anthony Barr — a four-time Pro Bowl defensive player — has spoken out against it.
Speaking to TMZ Sports, Barr gave his stance on the play. As a defender, he does not see a problem with the play, calling it a “slippery slope” if the league bans it.
“I think it's a slippery slope,” Barr said. “You ban one play, then what's next? I think you've just got to find a way to stop it.”
There is an old clip of Barr suggesting what would become the Tush Push a couple of seasons later. He was on the sidelines and suggested that teams push their big quarterbacks forward for the first down or touchdown.
“I just think you should put some big dude at quarterback, and then another big dude right behind him, and just push 'em,” he told teammate Harrison Smith. “Or two big guys right behind him and just have a double push.”
He later explained his thought process. “My mind was like, [a] quarterback sneak should always work,” he said in a clip from NFL Films.
However, Barr does not take any credit for inadvertently creating the play. “Nah, not at all. It's cool to see,” Anthony Barr told TMZ Sports.
Will the NFL ban the Tush Push?
Recently, there has been a call for the NFL to ban the Tush Push, a play the Philadelphia Eagles have made famous. Essentially, the play is a quarterback sneak where the ball carrier receives a push from offensive linemen, tight ends, and running backs behind him.
Nick Sirianni, who is now the Eagles' head coach, first executed the play while the Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator. Now, he frequently runs it in short-distance plays, making the Eagles a threat to score from the goal line.
The ban was proposed by the Green Bay Packers. It was a hot topic at the NFL's Annual League Meeting, though the debate has been shelved for the foreseeable future.
“The discussion on the tush push was very good, we showed a lot of data, a lot of questions from the clubs, a lot of discussion about it,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at a league meeting press conference. “I think there are safety issues that are being considered in that case. We have very little data from it, but it's beyond data, there's also the mechanism of injury that we study, that type of thing that leads us to show the risk involved with a particular play or a particular tackle. So those are things that we did discuss.”
So, for now, the Eagles can continue using their dominant play. They are not the only ones who use it, though. The Buffalo Bills have also been known to use it with their 6'5″ quarterback, Josh Allen.
