Wow, I have 100% the polar opposite view. I think it’s super boring and it makes games much less interesting. I prefer both offenses and defenses to have to think tactically about how to get/defend those difficult inches. It’s quite wild to me that someone could actually think this play is exciting. It feels to me like getting excited about an extra point before they moved the tee back a few years ago. Total yawnsville. But, as they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure 
I’m not so sure. The punishment for kicking into the end zone is a lot higher, which should mean more short kicks, but the reward for staying in the end zone is also much higher for the return team. I suspect that we’ll actually see more kicks rolling into the endzone and being downed. Unless teams get really good at getting short kicks to check up in play, the return team should basically stop fielding kicks entirely.
This has all the hallmarks of Rodgers clown show. The fact that nothing is official yet makes it seem like Rodgers intends to drag this out so that he can skip all the offseason stuff again. He’s basically going to show up for the first mandatory practice and expect a bunch of genuflection from the plebs.
Couldn’t happen to a better team.
This is the case. I don’t give a damn if one team is kicking everyone’s ass with it, but I think things should be at least a little fair between the offense and defense. If offensive players are allowed to shove a ball carrier forward, then defensive players and kick block units need to be allowed to shove their lineman from behind to create holes. I also expect refs to take the stopped forward progress rule seriously too, far too often the late whistles on forward progress are totally biased to the offense.
Thats a bad example. The offense controls the start of the play. You can’t allow them to simulate it with flinches. This difference in rules is completely reasonable and necessary. The problem is with entirely arbitrary differences.
I think this is colored by the recent narrative. If you think about it in a bubble, this play is no less interesting than a fullback dive, a traditional QB sneak, or a power run. I suppose you could argue that passing plays are more interesting than running plays. There was a time when, for some teams, turning around and handing the ball to a fullback was nearly as automatic as the tush push. And I’d be hard pressed to call that more or less tactical than the QB sneak. Recently Tom Brady was nearly as automatic on the traditional QB sneak as Hurts and the Eagles are now, and that wasn’t tactical brilliance.
No it’s not a bad example. It’s an example of the offense and defense having different rules. Saying something shouldn’t be allowed because the offense is allowed to do it but the defense can’t is silly because that’s not how football works. Each side always has different rules. So saying it’s unfair because only one side can do it is ridiculous, because that’s how football was designed.
Now, if the argument is that it’s arbitrary that one side can do it and the other can’t, the solution isn’t to disallow the offense from doing it. It’s to allow the defense to do it. Because you’re really arguing that there’s no reason to disallow the defense from making that play. Okay then, fine, make that argument. But that’s not what the argument was. I’d have been more supportive if it was.
This is very obviously not true. They have different rules when the two units have fundamentally different objectives. That’s expected. But for many cases where the issue would apply equally to both teams, they tend to have the same rule.
Examples:
Offsides, both teams have the same penalty if they are in the neutral zone at the snap.
Facemask, both sides have the same penalty if they grab a facemask.
Out of bounds, both sides need to re-establish themselves in the field of play before participating in the play.
Too many men, both sides get penalized the same if they have 12 men on the field at the snap.
Late hits, tripping, etc., most all personal fouls have the same enforcement on both sides of the ball.
The rules are different when there’s a good reason for them to be different.
I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.
There’s no presumption that both sides have to have the same rules. You get that, right? So an argument that you can’t let one side do something that the other can’t, that doesn’t work.
Hopefully you can agree with that much.
You chose to ignore half my post for some reason. And that half of my post was in agreement with the idea that there should be a reason for those differences. This is why you should consider an entire post before replying, and not take one sentence completely out of context.
So this is still not a valid argument for trying to disallow the tush push. It’s an argument for allowing the defense to use the same tactic. And I have no problem with that.
Sort of. If a defender twitches, an offensive alignment can jump and point at them and have a reasonable chance of the penalty going against the defense.
There’s no such thing as a false start on the defense. They have to move into the neutral zone prior to the snap to draw a flag. As long as they stay on their side of the zone, they can twitch all they want.
I disagree, in the sense of how teams line up. For those plays you mention, you can line up any number of ways to disguise or potentially trick the defense. The defense has to be ready for a fake FB dive or fake sneak or play action - there’s definitely some cat and mouse. With the tush push, everyone bunches up, and everyone knows what’s coming. That’s a big part of why it’s boring to me.
I don’t understand what you’re saying. If the ball lands short of the goal line and rolls into the end zone, and the return team downs it, it comes out to the 20. There’s no benefit to the return team to let it go into the end zone, unless they’re really bad at returns.
Right, that’s what I meant. There’s obviously no incentive to return a kick from the end zone anymore, but there’s a huge incentive to not just boot it to the back of the end zone.
It’s different because in a pick 6 - Team B got a possession, even if it only lasted the time it took the intercepting player to run to the end zone. But in a safety, Team B never possessed the ball.
Technically, yes.
But once the safety is done, Team A has to kick it to Team B. And Team B will have possession at that point. The only way the game wouldn’t end after the formality of the kickoff is for Team B to somehow try to return the ball but turn it over in the midst of the return and allow Team A to score a TD before the end of the special teams play.
It would be collossally stupid; just don’t return the ball. If the football ends up in the landing zone, anyone from the receiving team can still pick it up and run out of bounds.
That’s why the rules still have overtime ending on a safety from the articles I’m reading. They’re just avoiding an unnecessary formality.
Yep, from the current rulebook:
ARTICLE 3. OVERTIME IN REGULAR SEASON. Following an intermission of no more than three minutes after the end of a
regular season game, an extra period of 10 minutes shall commence. The following shall apply:
(a) Both teams must have the opportunity to possess the ball once during the extra period, unless the team that receives the
opening kickoff scores a touchdown on its initial possession, in which case it is the winner, or if the team kicking off to start
the overtime period scores a safety on the receiving team’s initial possession, in which case the team that kicked off is the
winner. If a touchdown is scored, the game is over, and the Try is not attempted.
I just read this in The Athletic email regarding a new rule for the upcoming season. Assumedly it’s correct.
- Expanded use of replay assist. On-site replay officials can now reverse flags for fouls involving tripping, roughing the kicker, face mask or horse-collar tackles and hits to defensive players. No flags can be added after the fact.
So it’s now easier to reverse a penalty call, but you still can’t throw a flag after the play.
Ok, we agree on that, I had the same point - the only way the game wouldn’t end on the free kick would be if Team B fields the ball then fumbles, and Team A recovering for a TD on the same play. But it’s not the same as the pick 6 case, which the rules already cover - both teams had a possession, so the game ends.
Yes, I think you’re correct on all points. 
I haven’t read the text of the proposed new rule, so I may be missing this nuance. But the headline is that “touchbacks come out to the 35” which on its face includes balls rolling into the endzone. But journalism is dead, so I’m not the least bit surprised that the casual reporting is crap on this. If this concept of the landing zone is still in place than I retract my original statement.
Absolutely not. The rule book is explicitly built such that the default position is that all players operate under the same rules, with (a lot of) exceptions. There is no “offensive rule book” and “defensive rule book”, there isn’t even an “offense chapter” and a “defense chapter”. You’ve decided to come up with your own presumption of the way it works which is clearly wrong and you’re then building a false premise on top of it.
At the end of the day, it’s not that important. I don’t think the tush push should be banned, whatever justification a person builds to arrive at the same conclusion isn’t worth arguing over.
Who says there’s no deception with the tush push? Teams run fakes out of it. Teams run it into different gaps. Yes, the Eagles have a superhuman at LG so they tend to do pretty much the same thing every time, but that’s just an Eagles thing right now because of personnel.
That’s weird. I could have sworn I heard the exact opposite, that they were planning to add the ability to make clear and obvious no-calls reviewable. Specifically in reaction to the uncalled Sam Darnold facemask in the playoffs. Maybe that idea didn’t pass.
According to Yahoo.
NFL expands use of replay assist
The second rule change for the 2025 season involves which penalties can be subject to replay review. Under the new policy, “hits on a defenseless player, grabbing the facemask, performing a horse-collar tackle, tripping, and running into or roughing the kicker” can be reviewed, according to Pro Football Talk.
That proposal comes with a catch, however. Those penalties can only be reviewed if officials throw a flag on the play. If a coach believes the flag was not warranted, he can challenge and potentially have the penalty overturned. In cases where no flag is thrown by an official on a play, coaches will not be eligible to challenge. If an official misses a penalty, a coach can’t use replay to change the situation.
It appears you’re correct. That’s disappointing. This probably means we’ll get more borderline flags thrown “just in case”. I get that defining what is and is not reviewable after the fact is potentially thorny, but replay continues to be way too deferential to the human refs.
Yeah, that part of the rule is unchanged from 2024 so I guess the articles don’t call it out. If the ball lands in the “landing zone” and bounces into the endzone where it is downed, it only comes out to the 20. I don’t remember ever seeing it happen during last season.
I wonder if at any point teams will start carrying 2 kickers. As long FGs become the standard, more and more kickers find it easy to boom the ball out of the back of the end zone. Simultaneously they seem to be getting worse at shorter, higher kickoffs. Will we see teams retaining a weaker legged kickoff specialist who can consistently drop the kickoff inside the 5 yard line? Or maybe the NFL should just change kickoffs to punts.
Another random thought, I have always disliked the part where the kickoff coverage team can’t move until the ball is caught. This means there’s no advantage to hang time, there’s no real strategy that a team can use to pin a team deep. I wonder if it would be better to instead use a whistle or other alert that releases the kick coverage team a fixed amount of time after the kick, say 2 seconds after the kick. That way kickers with a lot of hang time gain an advantage similar to punts.