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Kayvon Thibodeaux on officials blowing whistle on Eagles tush push after Giants forced fumble: 'That's some bulls***'

Chandler Vesselsby: Chandler Vessels4 hours agoChandlerVessels
kayvon thibodeaux tush push
Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

New York Giants edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux had a strong response to a pivotal call in the second quarter Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles. Facing fourth-and-1, the Eagles opted to run their famed “tush push” play, where players line up behind quarterback Jalen Hurts and push him across the line to gain.

As Hurts passed the first down line, Thibodeaux yanked the ball out from his hands and appeared to force a fumble. However, officials blew the whistle to end the play and ruled that it happened before the ball came out, negating the fumble.

Thibodeaux was clearly still upset about the call as he addressed it in a postgame interview. The Giants defender used some colorful language, not hiding his true feelings.

“That’s some bulls***,” he said. “Honestly, when it comes to that play and what happened, I feel like the refs, they’ve got kind of a hard job because they don’t know when to stop it. I think it’s tough on defense, obviously, because you stop the first surge and the ref don’t blow the whistle. You get the ball out and you take it and now all of a sudden it’s what you said, the forward progress. At the end of the day, you just gotta keep playing. S*** happens. Try to keep giving it your best and live with the results.”

Kayvon Thibodeaux was asked in a follow up question whether the officials explained the call to him in the moment. He said they did, telling him that they called Hurts down due to forward progress prior to the ball coming back, but he doubled down on his original take regarding the play

“He said they called the forward progress before he reached the ball out,” the edge rusher explained. “Sounds like some bulls*** to me. …”

The Eagles would go on to score two plays after the tush push ruling from officials. They also went on to win by a score of 38-20 as the Giants dropped to 2-6 on the season.

The tush push has received plenty of criticism over the past couple of seasons, and 22 of the league’s 32 teams voted to ban the play this offseason. However, that number fell just shy of the 24 votes needed to change the rule, so the tush push was allowed to stay.

For opponents of the tush push, this will only serve as another case against it. We’ll see whether that can potentially sway a couple of more owners against it for next season, but for now it is here to stay.