NFL EVP Troy Vincent addresses 'tush push' officiating amid controversy surrounding patented Eagles play

Troy Vincent, the NFL’s Executive Vice President of Football Operations, had some interesting things to say about tush push, a play that is used mostly by the Philadelphia Eagles. While speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Vincent discussed the challenges officials have when the Eagles use the play.

“One of the things that I have learned and what we’ve observed is what has been said by officials the last two years when we’ve discussed the push play,” Troy Vincent said. “Very difficult to officiate real time. What we’re seeing is that the line judge, sometimes on a replay, we see in some cases, say, ‘Hey, would a guard jump or the guard moved?’ …It is really hard for that line judge to identify that based on where he’s at looking down the line of scrimmage.

“At the end of the day, here’s a team that still does it well. We’ve seen other people have versions of it. But from an officiating standpoint, we’re going to try to get better in identifying when someone is in the neutral zone or when someone leaves a little early.”

The NFL admits to a missed call on the ‘tush push’ play

Vincent’s comments came a month after the NFL admitted to a missed call on the tush push play when the Eagles used it against the Kansas City Chiefs. In the league’s officials’ training tape sent to teams, it said the Eagles should have been called for a false start. The Eagles ran the tush push play seven times in the game, and it helped them earn a 20-17 victory.

“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 at the time, per the Washington 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.”

During the offseason, the NFL owners voted on a proposal to ban the tush push. The proposal, which was created by the Green Bay Packers, did not receive enough votes from the owners to pass, so the play will remain legal in the NFL until further notice.