The Pittsburgh Steelers successfully got a proposed rule change to become official, as they altered how teams can approach free agency and the legal tampering period. Many teams were supposedly already doing what Pittsburgh proposed by bringing players into their building and having personal conversations with them before the new league year. Now, it is legal to have those kinds of meetings during the tampering period. That rule went Pittsburgh's way, but not everything they wanted during the spring meetings.
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Steelers Owner Art Rooney II (left) and Head Coach Mike Tomlin (right) oversee practice during the 2021 minicamp in Pittsburgh.
Owner Art Rooney II had an interview after the NFL annual league meetings concluded. He was asked about the Philadelphia Eagles' famous play, the "tush push," and he revealed his vote on the matter, even though it didn't go through.
"We were in favor of the rule as proposed," explained Rooney. "It’s a fairly narrow proposal in terms of eliminating the ability to push the quarterback on a quarterback sneak. We were in favor of that."
The Eagles managed to tush push their way to two Super Bowl appearances, including one win in recent years. It is very rare that they do not succeed whenever they run their patented play. No defense has found a strategy to shut down the play, but many have tried, including the Washington Commanders going viral for repeatedly trying to jump the snap Troy Polamalu-style.
Some members of the NFL have cited injury concerns for why they want to ban the play, although numerous reports show that no one got injured while trying to run the play or stop the play in the 2024 season. Others believe that the rule is unfairly targeting the Eagles since nobody runs it like they do.
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Chiefs' Chris Jones (95) tried lining up sideways to stop the tush push.
No other team has been able to run the tush push as successfully as the Eagles, so banning the play really only affects them. Their secret is that they hired a rugby coach for the sole purpose of mastering this one play. At the end of the day, their version of the quarterback sneak is just a rugby scrum.
Steelers' Rooney Wants To Talk About Other Rugby Plays
Rooney continued on with his disapproval of the Eagles' rugby play by bringing up a similar thing that every team does.
"It also got into the discussion of other similar kinds of plays where we have scrums downfield where guys are pushing the pile," said Rooney. "Why aren't we addressing that while we're addressing this? A number of different things came up, and it just seemed like it was better tabling it and coming back and talking about it more later."
There are many plays where the defense struggles to take down the ball-carrier, which gives everyone time to join the pile. The result is two teams trying to push each other backwards. As long as the offense is still moving forward, the play continues. Officials only stop the play when forward progress is stopped.
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A gang of Steelers defenders including TJ Watt converge on a ball-carrier for the Cleveland Browns in Week 11 of 2023.
That type of play is very similar to the tush push, with the main difference is that it's not planned at all. It could be dangerous, but there is no data currently available to show how often that event leads to injuries and the severity of each one. That will have to be something the NFL pays attention to if they ever want to do something about it, like they did in 2024 with the Eagles' play.
Rooney seemed frustrated at the lack of conversation about the downfield scrums, as well as many other proposals. It sounds like a lot of the ideas and proposals that were not agreed to in 2025 will be brought back up in 2026 for another round of discussion. The tush push and the downfield scrums will likely be talked about then, with Rooney helping to lead the charge.
What do you think about the tush push, as well as Rooney being in favor of banning it? Let us know in the comments or on X at @Steelers_ChrisB.
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