There has now been reporting on all the teams that declined to vote to ban the notorious tush push.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Browns, Jaguars, Dolphins, Saints, and Titans voted with the Eagles, Ravens, Patriots, Jets, and Lions against the proposal that would have banned the play.
Of those 10 teams, the Saints are particularly notable as they employ former Philadelphia offensive coordinator Kellen Moore as their new head coach, and Moore called that play plenty of times en route to a Super Bowl victory last season.
Cleveland, Jacksonville, Miami, and Tennessee do not have the same direct connections to Philadelphia, though Browns G.M. Andrew Berry did work in Philadelphia’s front office and his twin brother, Adam, is the Eagles’ VP of football operations and strategy.
Notably, the Cardinals and Colts — who also have former Eagles coordinators as head coaches — did vote to ban the play.
Either way, the tush push will be in use for at least another season.
As Black Bart once said, “OK, Ralphie. You win this time, but we’ll be back.”
The anti-tush push forces inevitably will return with another effort to remove the Eagles’ signature play from the rulebook.
Wednesday’s effort failed, by only two votes. With 24 required, the final tally was 22-10.
Multiple reports indicated that the Ravens, Patriots, Jets, and Lions were among the 10 “nay” votes. We’re told that the Titans, Jaguars, and Browns also were opposed to the proposal. Throw in the Eagles, and that’s eight of the 10.
The vote ends the matter for 2025. It undoubtedly will be back, as soon as next March. Especially if/when the anti-tush push forces can bring evidence to the table tangible evidence (real or imagined) of a safety risk.
Until the play is eliminated, all teams other than the Eagles have two ways of dealing with the situation: (1) figure out how to stop it; and/or (2) figure out how to run it.
The third strategy is to create the kind of spectacle that results in the same ugliness that happened in the NFC Championship — and which seemed to light the fuse for the league’s failed effort to dump the play.
When the NFL schedule was released last week, one thing that stood out was that the Jaguars are set to play just one prime time game during the 2025 season.
That was notable because they added Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter after trading up in the first round of the draft and because they have former first overall pick Trevor Lawrence at quarterback. Quarterbacks are central to the league’s marketing efforts and Lawrence actually appeared in advertising for the schedule release, but the lack of spotlight games illustrates the view that his career has not unfolded as many people thought it would.
On Monday, Lawrence acknowledged that things have gone the wrong way for him and the Jaguars over the last couple of years while also expressing confidence in new head coach Liam Coen’s chances of getting Jacksonville back on track.
“I really like the people we have here now,” Lawrence said, via the team’s website. “I love the system. I love the staff, the players that we brought in along with the guys that were already here. I feel very confident in where we’re going and the trajectory we’re heading. You can’t change the past. I would love to have had a little more success up until this point, but this is where we’re at, and I love where we’re at. I have a lot of confidence in it, and we just have to keep putting the work in out here every day to prepare ourselves for the fall.”
The Jaguars signed Lawrence to a five-year extension before last season, so they are invested in seeing things get better as soon as possible for a player who entered the league with the expectation that he’d be a lot further along by this point in his career.
Travis Hunter’s Jaguars tenure is off to a good start.
That’s at least according to head coach Liam Coen, who was asked about the two-way player after Jacksonville’s first OTA practice on Monday.
“I think so far so good,” Coen said of Hunter translating the work in the classroom to the field, via transcript from the team. “He had a couple of missed assignments today that he knew right away. He came off the grass and took accountability for them.
“The one thing you notice is for a guy that hasn’t played a ton of football, been out conditioning for maybe the last two months because he was out on a bit of a tour, the guy can run forever. He just kind of goes, runs a route, runs back. You can tell he’s in football shape. He’s done a nice job. [Receivers coach] Edgar Bennett, the coaches, [secondary coach] Ron Milus, those guys have done a great job of meeting with him when they’ve had time to do so, and Travis has worked hard at getting this stuff right.”
Quarterback Trevor Lawrence also noted that Hunter is “impressive to watch,” saying that the No. 2 overall pick has “a lot of juice.”
There’s still a long way to go before Week 1, but Hunter appears to be setting himself up for plenty of success in his rookie season.
Jaguars head coach Liam Coen shared some information about the team’s training camp plans during a Monday press conference.
Coen was asked if the team is going to have any joint practices as they prepare for the 2025 season. Coen said that the team will work with the Dolphins before the two teams face off in Miami during the final week of the preseason.
“One as of right now,” Coen said. “Miami.”
The Jaguars will host the Steelers on August 9 in their preseason opener and they will travel to New Orleans to play the Saints on August 17. The game against the Dolphins is set for August 23.
The Jaguars have plans for Travis Hunter on both sides of the ball during his rookie season and he’s started working with the guy who will have a heavy hand in determining how things go on the offensive side of the ball.
Hunter and quarterback Trevor Lawrence are now able to practice together and Lawrence said in a Monday press conference that he plans to “really dial in on the details” with Hunter during the team’s organized team activities. Lawrence also said that the big picture view of Hunter’s ability has been a positive one.
“Got a lot of juice, like he can run all day,” Lawrence said. “A lot of energy. I love it. Good energy. Always dapping guys up, just bringing juice every day. Like I said, high motor. Can just go. It’s like a kid just runs around all day. He doesn’t get tired, it seems like. So you can’t have enough of that. And then, as far as just talent, I mean, kind of speaks for itself. Ball skills, run after the catch, he’s very explosive. Just didn’t realize how explosive he was in and out of cuts. He’s impressive to watch.”
Lawrence hasn’t built on the potential he showed while taking the Jaguars to the divisional round of the playoffs in 2022, but the hope is that new head coach Liam Coen and a new target in Hunter will put his career back on an upward trajectory.
The Jaguars learned their schedule on Wednesday night, but tight end Patrick Murtagh doesn’t need to worry about where the team will be playing come September.
Murtagh was waived off of the team’s roster on Thursday morning. There was no word of a corresponding move.
Murtagh initially joined the Jaguars last April and was waived with an injury designation in August. The Australian native was a track athlete before switching to Australian Rules football and got his first NFL look from the Lions in the 2023 offseason.
Brenton Strange, Johnny Mundt, Hunter Long, Shawn Bowman, John Copenhaver, and Patrick Herbert are the remaining tight ends in Jacksonville.
When the Jaguars took quarterback Trevor Lawrence with the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft, he was widely viewed as a future star. As he heads into his fifth NFL season, that hasn’t happened.
The NFL’s schedule makes that clear: The Jaguars got just one prime time game in 2025, as the NFL gives the best time slots to the teams that are the biggest draws — which often means the teams with the best quarterbacks. Lawrence just hasn’t caught on with NFL fans.
Despite the NFL’s surprising decision to put Lawrence on a graphic advertising the schedule release, he and the Jaguars do not generate big audiences like the other four players on the graphic, Jared Goff and the Lions, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, Jalen Hurts and the Eagles, and Josh Allen and the Bills.
Lawrence hasn’t exactly been a bust, but he hasn’t become the All-Pro that so many pegged him as from his freshman year at Clemson. Instead he’s just an OK quarterback on a team that was less than OK last year.
The Jaguars also added Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter with the second overall pick in the draft, but that is also not enough to cross over with the common fan.
What the Jaguars need to do to become big TV draws is to win — something that won’t be easy in their one and only prime time game, Week Five against the Chiefs.
The Jaguars are signing free agent tight end Quintin Morris to a one-year deal, Jordan Schultz of Fox Sports reports.
Morris, 26, spent the past four seasons with the Bills.
In 2024, he played 16 games with three starts, used mostly as a blocker on his 214 offensive snaps. Morris made five catches for 36 yards and a touchdown.
Morris has 15 receptions for 146 yards and three touchdowns in 45 career games.
He is a core special teams player, seeing action on 912 special teams snaps the past three seasons. He played a career-high 324 special teams snaps last season.
Morris has a seven special teams tackles, including four last season.
Jaguars Executive V.P. of Football Operations says the team wants to wear its “Prowler” throwback uniforms — the uniforms Boselli himself wore during his Jaguars career as a Hall of Fame offensive tackle — as often as permitted under NFL rules.
Boselli was asked on 1010XL about fans clamoring for the throwback uniforms to return permanently, and Boselli said he wants to see the return of the uniform design named for jerseys with a prowling jaguar on the sleeve.
“I’m with the fans. You know where I lie. I would wear those dang things every game if we were allowed. I think this year we’re allowed to wear them up to four. We will maximize. Any time we can wear the power of the old-school jerseys, they will be on,” Boselli said.
Boselli said the NFL doesn’t allow teams to make too many changes to its uniforms and that the Jaguars couldn’t immediately return to the old uniform design, but he indicated that the Jaguars could be heading to a time when the Prowlers are the main uniform and the current main uniform is the alternate.
“There are league rules of how often you can change the jerseys,” Boselli said. “We will abide by those rules. We can’t change them immediately to be a full-time jersey. Stay tuned. We’ll communicate that as we have the opportunity to at our next jersey change. But for this year, expect us to maximize. I believe it’s four times that we can wear the Prowlers, and we’re going to maximize and wear those Prowlers as much as we can.”
The Jaguars wore the original Prowler uniforms when the team first played as an expansion franchise, then slightly modified them in 1998 before a significant uniform change in 2009.
