Tush Push Analytics - It's Insane 31 NFL Teams Are So Stupid In Not "Taking Advantage" Of Legal Booty Grabbing
Jalen Hurts and the Eagles successfully converted on two more tush pushes - both for touchdowns - in front of America on Thursday Night Football making everyone wonder if such a play should be allowed. But no one is asking the right question. The question isn't wether or not it should be allowed. The question is why more teams AREN'T grabbing more asses.
The clip below properly describes where teams are at on this issue. The Phildelphia Eagles are Night at the Roxbury club owner Benny Zadir. Every other team is Chris Kattan.
The Eagles simply can't get their asses grabbed enough. It's all that's on their mind. And they constantly put themselves in situations to solicit it happing again. Meanwhile, no other team can even wrap their brain around doing such a thing (Chris Kattan). But now that they see how much the Eagles like it, they are starting to wonder if they should like it too. This is the current state of the NFL tush push.
THE ANSWER IS YES. YES YOU MORONS! STOP BEING SUCH PRUDES!
If you ask me - yes - the tush push should be banned. But you know what? It isn't. So we need to run some tushalytics to see how effective a little (consensual) grab here and there can be when trying to score.
My data doesn't explicitly tell me if a run play was a tush push but I can get a good proxy of possible tush push plays with the following filter. I took every quarterback to rush up the middle from under center on a third or fourth and three or less since the start of 2022 when grabbing some tush became not only culturally acceptable, but en vouge for the Eagles.
The graph below shows just how absurdly more the Eagles follow all these qualifiers vs the rest of the league. You'll notice all team's first down conversion percentage is in red on the bars.
Again - I can't confirm all of these were tush pushes and I'm pretty sure most of the qualifying plays from the other team's were not. But I'm betting most the Eagles plays were and if they are getting a first or touchdown on 96 percent of their tush-temps there's no reason every other team shouldn't be doing this. Sure - the Eagles have a great O-line. But there's just no logic to say having two players using 450 lbs of extra leverage isn't going to help.
I even ran a proper one-tailed t-test and the Eagles converted significantly more first downs in these situations than the rest of the leauge at the .01 level. That's tush science right there. That's your tushalytics.
Every coach who doesn't use this tool should be fired. FIRED. The Bears snuck Justin Fields on a fourth down in Week 1 with two unwarmed butt cheeks as he failed to convert by inches. Between that and the gutless playcalling all game, I wanted to throw every beer can I had Luke Getsy's face. FIRED. Matt Eberflus? FIRED. Every coach who doesn't do this on fourth and short? FIRED. I'd tell them all to not let the the door hit their tush on the way out but seems evident they'd never allow their tush to be touched anyway.
The only coach I'll give a pass on is Andy Reid. Hard to argue firing the Super Bowl winning coach even though the Chiefs are the only team that hasn't QB snuck up the middle on a third or 4th and three or less since 2022. But I still think Reid should consider changing his moral stance against abrupt touching. Perhaps Jackson could give him some tips.
Anyway - if the tush push is here to stay, teams need to be a little less Chris Kattan, and a little more Benny Zadir. Because from this position, there's no way any team shouldn't be pushing more tush.
Unless you're coaching the Philadelphia Eagles, I'm talking to you.
- Jeffro