NFL admits missed call on tush push, instructs officials to crack down on controversial Eagles play

The NFL just made the call on the Philadelphia Eagles and their tush push plays against the Kansas City Chiefs this past weekend. Per Mark Maske of the Washington Post, the NFL said in its officials’ training tape sent to teams this week that the Eagles should have been called for a false start on the play.

Maske then said the NFL is instructing officials to call “these plays tight and make sure that every aspect of the offensive team is legal.” The Eagles ran the tush push play seven times, and it helped them beat the Chiefs 20-17. The Chiefs believed the Eagles committed multiple false-start penalties on the play.

“Anytime we have this situation, we’re in short yardage, we know we want to make sure that we officiate these plays — the offensive team has to be perfect in every aspect,” NFL senior VP of officiating Ramon George said, per the post. “We want to officiate it tight. We want to be black and white and be as tight as we can be when we get into this situation where teams are in the bunch position and we have to officiate them being onside, movement early.”

Eagles HC responds to tush push controversy after win against Chiefs

“You can’t get all the calls right,” Chiefs all-pro interior lineman Chris Jones said, per NBC Sports Philadelphia. “Just because we see it, sometimes the official is 15 to 20 feet away and sometimes they can miss those small things. We think he jumped multiple times. The official didn’t see it, so it wasn’t called. We just have to go play the next down. It happens. People jump all the time.”

Jones isn’t the only one saying the Eagles should have been penalized, as fans also pointed it out on social media. Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni was asked about the no-calls on the tush push on Monday.

“I think that the one clip I saw of it was slowed down so much that I’m not sure you can see that to the naked eye,” he said. “I mean, it was slowed down so much, and I get how we can manipulate things and show things like that, but it was slowed down so much, it was like, ‘Right!’ But we have to understand that we have to be perfect on that play. And we’ll keep working on being perfect on that play.”

The tush push has been a hot topic since last offseason. In May, NFL owners came up two votes shy of banning the play. The proposal to ban the tush push was created by the Green Bay Packers, who lost to the Eagles in the Wild-Card round of the playoffs.