The “Tush Push” was a major point of controversy this offseason after teams tried to have the Philadelphia Eagles’ patented play banned during the annual league meetings. Ultimately, there weren’t enough votes in favor of banning it – despite Sean McVay’s best efforts – so it was allowed to stick around for another year.
Just two weeks into the season, it’s already creating more problems. During the Eagles-Chiefs game on Sunday, Philadelphia ran the play seven times and on multiple occasions, the guards moved early but weren’t called for false starts.
With the Los Angeles Rams visiting the Eagles in Week 3, McVay plans to talk to the league office about that early movement, which gives Philadelphia a big advantage on a play that’s so critical to its success.
“Anytime that you see certain things, you have conversations with the league office to make sure you’re understanding, how is it officiated? How can we coach it?” he said Monday. “I did see some of those things last night and that’ll obviously be a big talking point because they’re such a damn good team and it’s such a successful play for them. Those are conversations with the league office, but I’m sure they’ll have the same ones and operate within the confines of not getting a little bit of a rolling start before the ball is snapped.”
It’s already a play that’s difficult enough to stop when done legally. But if the guards get a “rolling start,” as McVay put it, it makes it borderline impossible to thwart.
And it was clear as day that the Eagles were getting an advantage on Sunday by not being penalized for a false start on four of their seven attempts.
As unfortunate as it was for the Chiefs that none of those penalties were called, this controversy could be coming at the perfect time for McVay and the Rams. The world is talking about the Tush Push again, which is going to encourage the NFL to officiate it more closely in Week 3 to prevent it from being another talking point on Monday.
And with McVay talking to the league office ahead of time, you can bet he’ll be telling the officials to watch any early movement from the Eagles’ guards on Sunday.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Rams plan to talk to NFL about Eagles’ uncalled false starts on Tush Push
Reporting by Cameron DaSilva, Rams Wire / Rams Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
