Travis and Jason Kelce are not on board with the efforts to have the ‘tush push’ banned from the NFL.
The short-yardage play – which has been most frequently and successfully used by the Eagles in recent seasons – has drawn significant criticism, with the Packers proposing a ban on it this offseason. Owners tabled the issue at league meetings this week, opting instead to vote on it instead in May, per multiple reports.
Nonetheless, former Philly center Jason criticized the campaign to ban the play, and slammed the notion that it was posing a health risk to players as ‘kind of bogus.’
‘I get it. I get why certain teams wanna ban it for compeтιтive reasons,’ he began on the latest episode of New Heights. ‘I get why some people think that it’s potentially unsafe. I think optically, it looks unsafe.
‘For me personally, I never felt like there’s that much more of a risk of injuring somebody on the play. And I don’t think there’s any statistics to back that up. So anybody saying that it’s gonna lead to more injuries is pure conjecture, not rooted in fact.’
While there is currently no conclusive data showing that the play leads to injuries, Bills coach Sean McDermott told reporters this week that the play should be banned in the interest of player safety, and that the NFL should be ‘proactive.’ The Bills frequently used the play last season.
Jason and Travis Kelce are both against the ‘tush-push’ being banned in the NFL
The play has been frequently and often successfully by the Eagles in short-yardage situations
Jason Kelce has experience running the play from the latter stages of his Eagles career
Jason, who frequently ran the play in the latter stages of his career after the Eagles popularized it in 2022, argued the play was not the sort of ‘high-impact collision’ that generally causes injuries.
Travis also delivered an impᴀssioned defense of the ‘tush push.’
‘There are four downs that a team gets to get a first down, or get in the end zone. If the ‘tush push’ is just one play that you run when you have a short yardage situation, those may come up a handful of times throughout a game, and it’s like, you can’t get upset at that one play,’ he said.
‘I understand the whole, if you wanna say it’s not safe – football isn’t a safe game to play. So I know we’re trying to make it safer or whatever, it is what it is. I think it’s a football type of play, it’s a toughness play that you need to be in sync with the guys next to you and the guys around you… I don’t think we need to be banning this.
Jason, meanwhile, said the play ‘perfectly represents’ the sort of football he likes, but was more sympathetic to arguments of a ‘compeтιтive advantage.’
Sean McDermott is still anti-Tush PushSays he still has injury concern even though the data suggests there is no injury risk pic.twitter.com/oi0he4Ny21
— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) March 31, 2025
‘I think the only argument I see for potentially banning it is, is there a compeтιтive advantage? Is it unfair that players can push, and should we allow players to push rather than ball-carriers or anybody to have to do things on their own,’ Jason said.
Read More Nick Sirianni plays mind games with rival coaches as Eagles fear ‘tush push’ ban ahead of NFL vote 
‘But that’s gonna be a hard rule to enforce, like when is that enforced? Are gang tackles outlawed? Are open field, like when big [Chiefs center] Creed Humphrey gets behind a running back and he’s pushing the pile forward, do we not want that? Because I like that. I think it’s hard to know where do you stop this from occurring. You can’t just say like hey, you can’t do the ‘tush push’. That feels like a hard rule. It needs to be a rule that’s enforceable throughout football.’
Jason also said he was ‘tired’ of the discussion around the play, and noted that defensive players are allowed to push one another during the ‘tush push,’ while pushing has been banned on field goal attempts.
The Eagles are not the only NFL team to have used the ‘tush push’, though they are certainly the franchise most closely ᴀssociated with the play.
According to ESPN, 65 of the 101 ‘tush push’ calls last season came from the Eagles and Bills combined, and Philly has scored 27 touchdowns using it the last three years.
