The Super Bowl rematch turned into bully ball highlighted by the NFL\u2019s ugliest play.<\/p>\n
Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley and the Philadelphia Eagles pushed \u2014 literally \u2014 their way past Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, 20-17, on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Hurts scored another touchdown on a tush push and the Eagles used the play seven times to help hand the Chiefs their first three-game losing streak with Mahomes and send them to their first 0-2 start since 2014.<\/p>\n
The NFL tried to ban to the tush push following a proposal from the Green Bay Packers in the offseason but fell two votes short of eliminating it.<\/p>\n
Those who oppose the play must\u2019ve cringed watching the Eagles use it repeatedly in front of a national television audience.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt many of the decision-makers noticed.<\/p>\n
Tom Brady pointed out two of Philadelphia\u2019s offensive linemen moved early when Hurts was pushed into the end zone for a 20-10 lead midway through the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Replays showed the Eagles clearly got away with a false start.<\/p>\n
After Hurts appeared to lose the ball but was ruled down to gain a first down on the play in the final two minutes, Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino said: \u201cI am done with the tush push, guys. It\u2019s a hard play to officiate.\u201d<\/p>\n
While there was plenty of scoring and exciting action around the league in Week 2 – the Cowboys beat the Giants 40-37 in overtime in a thrilling, back-and-forth matchup – the tush push became a main topic of conversation during the NFL\u2019s game of the week.<\/p>\n
Sure, there was plenty of talk about Kansas City\u2019s early season struggles, Andy Reid\u2019s out-of-synch offense and Travis Kelce not being on the same page with Mahomes. But the game wasn\u2019t pretty and the tush push magnified the ugliness.<\/p>\n
Critics argued it\u2019s a dangerous play in the offseason but there wasn\u2019t enough injury data to ban it for safety concerns. Most of the disdain was directed at the aesthetics of the play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it part of what football has been traditionally, or is it more of a rugby play?\u201d NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said about the discussion. <\/p>\n
Those who hate the appearance of the tush push saw it on full display at Arrowhead Stadium.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll have to see it for at least the remainder of the season because it\u2019s not going anywhere. The Eagles (2-0) have mastered it in short-yardage situations and they\u2019ll keep using it until owners vote to get rid of it, if they ever do so.<\/p>\n
Blandino\u2019s frustration with the play was echoed by viewers and NFL fans except for anyone who roots for Philly. The new argument against it could center on the difficulty officiating it properly. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe work our (tails) off on it,\u201d coach Nick Sirianni said. \u201cFirst of all, it\u2019s all about the guys, right? It\u2019s all about the guys up front, the tight ends, Jalen, the timing of everything. Obviously, won\u2019t get into all the things that we do to prepare for it, but it\u2019s not an easy play to practice, but our guys do a great job of simulating it as much as we possibly can.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring practice, during walkthroughs, different things like that, creativity by our coaches to find ways to do that. As you can see, teams are going to do everything they can possibly do to stop it. Some of the things, I won\u2019t get into that, either. I won\u2019t give any other teams a clue to what they were doing. We\u2019re prepared for all those things, and the guys are prepared for all those things. I think it always comes down to those guys up front and Jalen had a lot of success with that play. We\u2019ll continue to use it to our advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
If it becomes an unfair advantage because officials can\u2019t catch false starts, the NFL will have to address the problem.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
On Football analyzes the biggest topics in the NFL from week to week. For more On Football analysis, head here.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nfl<\/p>\n
Rob Maaddi, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Super Bowl rematch turned into bully ball highlighted by the NFL\u2019s ugliest play. Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-145532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}