You can hate the ‘tush push.’ It’s your prerogative, and that’s fine. But if you’re out here calling for the play to be banned — or even worse, removed altogether — then Ryan Clark might just tell you to “shut the hell up.”
Complaining about the tush push has become all the rage in the aftermath of Super Bowl LIX. Jim Nantz wants the play removed from the game, as he doesn’t like it and doesn’t believe it’s football. But for those like Adam Schefter, any attempts to ban the play — like the Green Bay Packers are attempting right now — are just plain childish.
Clark is unsurprisingly more in line with his ESPN colleague. And during an appearance on NFL Live Monday, the former Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Bowl safety said any attempts to ban the play from obvious detractors like Packers president Mark Murphy are “dumb” and “soft.”
“How soft do you have to be?” asked an exasperated Clark. “‘Oh, we can’t stop it. Our defensive tackles aren’t tough enough. Our linebackers get hurt.’ Shut the hell up and bow your neck. Somebody get physical and stop the play. And as Mina says, it’s like everything else in sports — if you don’t have the personnel to do it, you actually don’t do it. Trust me, whatever team Matthew Stafford plays for next year is not implementing the tush push. Don’t even trip. Don’t even worry about it. Don’t practice it.
“It’s about understanding who you’re playing, practicing, getting in the right gap. Look at the Kansas City Chiefs. The Kansas City Chiefs went into the AFC Championship with an actual plan for the quarterback sneak, with a plan to stop Josh Allen. Not only did they stop a two-point conversion, but they also stopped the fourth-down attempt — depending on where you thought the football was.”
For Clark, the idea of abandoning coaching and just banning the play is “dumb” and “soft.”
“And to be honest, when you look at the actual play and the way that they run it, it’s actually more difficult for them to practice it, to do it the amount of times that they do,” added Clark. “And unless it’s a player health and safety decision, you don’t take it out of the game.”
At the end of the day, the tush push probably isn’t going anywhere because it works.
It’s not a fluke; it’s a strategy that the Eagles have mastered, and if you’re not prepared to stop it, that’s on you.
If the play bothers you, the solution isn’t banning it; it’s beating it, according to Clark. And as he put it, the focus should be on getting tougher, smarter and more physical, not running to the rulebook every time something gets a little too tough to handle.
This is football, after all, and the best teams usually find ways to adapt — not whine about it.