The Philadelphia Eagles’ Tush Push, a short-yardage play in which teammates push forward to help quarterback Jalen Hurts, has become a talking point. Despite a slight decline in its conversion rate over recent seasons, the play remains an integral part of the Eagles’ offense and a source of controversy league-wide.
The 2025 season has seen both lower usage and a continued decline in effectiveness, yet the play’s legality remains debated despite a failed attempt to ban it during the offseason.
Stephen A. Smith’s Prediction on Eagles’ Tush Push Usage
The Eagles will take on the Green Bay Packers on Monday at Lambeau Field, and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith made a prediction on the usage of tush pushes on Green Bay.
“I’m predicting more than five Tush Pushes, just to get on Green Bay’s nerves,” said Smith.
Cam Newton: “A lot of tush pushin’ tonight — on the field and off the field.” pic.twitter.com/cavkYoiz3p
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 10, 2025
The game carries a bigger story given the Packers’ role in the failed offseason proposal to ban the play. The measure, backed by 22 teams but falling two votes short of the 24 needed, sought to outlaw the Tush Push, which was largely motivated by safety concerns and officiating difficulties.
Defensive player Micah Parsons, now with the Packers, has been vocally critical, calling it “not football” after watching Hurts score on four straight Tush Push attempts against the New York Giants in Week 6.
The play’s legality hinges on subtle rules about assisting the ball carrier, and officials have acknowledged that false starts are difficult to detect during the scrum. Even when Hurts fumbled the ball against the Giants, the play was ruled forward progress, a call that cannot be reviewed.
Nevertheless, the Eagles have continued to rely on the play. Through Week 8 of the 2025 season, Philadelphia has attempted it 17 times with a 76.5% conversion rate, a decline from the previous seasons’ usage (21 attempts in the first eight games of 2023 and 2024) and success rate (92.6% in 2022, 83.3% in 2023, 82.1% in 2024), according to ESPN.
Green Bay has historically experimented with the Tush Push. In 2023, the Packers ran it five times with quarterback Jordan Love, converting four, but the play hasn’t been used since. Coach Matt LaFleur cited protecting the quarterback and team structure as reasons for not using it, despite its success in short-yardage situations.
Parsons and other defensive players have had a hard time countering it, talking about the difficulty of stopping 320-pound momentum surging forward in a tightly packed formation.
According to PFSN’s Offense Impact metric, the Eagles have a score of 79.1 with a C+ grade.