The NFL hates changing rules that can lead to unintended consequences. Usually, the unintended consequences are fairly immediate. For one specific rule change that was made, it took 16 years for someone to figure out how to exploit it in a way the league didn’t intend.
Before 2006, the rules prohibited both pushing and pulling the ball carrier. Pushing the ball carrier happened from time to time at the end of a play, with a lineman or someone else crashing in and pushing either the player or the pile.
It was never called, so the league decided to remove the rule against pushing the player from the rulebook. Then, at some point last year, the Eagles discovered short-yardage plutonium. They’ve made it work, well. And, somewhat amazingly, at least 24 owners didn’t rise up to eradicate the butt-ugly play from the game.
Anyone can use it. The Eagles have perfected it. On Saturday, coach Nick Sirianni’s press conference commenced with several questions about it.
First, where did it come from? Who gets the credit for finding it?
“That’s a good question,” Sirianni said. “It works and we just keep doing it. I don’t remember if we saw this -- I know Reggie Bush did it to Matt Leinart a long time ago, right? In Notre Dame versus USC. There is not a rule against it, so that’s what we do. . . . I don’t know what the origin is except for when it works, we just keep rolling with it.”
Sirianni surely does know and, for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to go there.
He later said the play often operates as a traditional quarterback sneak, without an actual push happening — despite the formation. And, again, not everyone can or will try it.
“Not everyone has [center] Jason Kelce, [guard] Landon Dickerson, [offensive lineman] Cam Jurgens,” Sirianni said. “Not everybody has [tackle] Jordan Mailata. Not everybody has [tackle] Lane Johnson on the other side. Not everybody has that type of quarterback.
“We noticed that last year when people were making maybe some big deals about it. There are a lot that are unsuccessful. You guys know who the teams were that were, and I don’t know exactly the teams that were successful and the teams that weren’t successful.
“But there is clearly a talent to it that our guys have, because it’s not as -- maybe it’s automatic right now for the Philadelphia Eagles, but it’s not automatic around the NFL . . . You hear it and you’re like, well, I get that some people are complaining about it, but stop it. Stop the play. It’s not as automatic as people think as we’re seeing across the NFL. . . .
“Now, we did a lot of studies on everything in the offseason to help ourselves be even better at it, but it’s about those guys up front. It’s about Jalen [Hurts]. I think we would be pretty successful without the push, but we’re just pushing them sometimes to give that extra thump.”
The risk for the Eagles is that someone will come up with an idea for stopping the play that possibly injures Hurts. The reality is that, if the Eagles continue to be the only team that has perfected the play, it eventually will be pushed right out of the rulebook.