The “tush push” or “Brotherly shove” has a higher success rate than any other play in American Football. But only when one team does it.
The “tush push” or “Brotherly shove” has a higher success rate than any other play in American Football. But only when one team does it.
By Frances Howe
February 8, 2025 — 12.30pm
More than 2500 kilograms of human flesh smashing together … to make a yard or two.
The “brotherly shove” or “tush push” has become synonymous with the Philadelphia Eagles and has the highest success rate of any play in the NFL – but only when the Eagles do it.
Described as American football’s “unstoppable move”, it may be the one thing that prevents the Kansas City Chiefs from winning their third Super Bowl in a row on Monday (AEDT).
The tush push is used by the Eagles to gain small amounts of territory. A wall of players surge into the opposition to force open gaps in the defence and the quarterback behind them is pushed into the gap to either score a touchdown or to keep a drive going.
Other teams use different versions of what is known as a “quarterback sneak”, but none are nearly as effective as the Eagles.
American Football Australia national coaching director Russell Hewitt describes it as when the players “punch a space into the defence with the force and the athleticism of their players”.
A key component of the Eagles’ tush push is Australian Jordan Mailata, an ex-Rabbitohs under-20s player who joined an NFL pathway program and was scouted in part due to his sheer size.
At 207cm tall and weighing 166kg, he is described by Hewitt as “an absolute mammoth of a man”, and Mailata is not alone: when the Eagles play the Chiefs on Monday they will have four players heavier than the heaviest Chief.
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One man knows a lot about Mailata, and is often credited with the unique success of the Eagles’ tush push, though he was never even supposed to be involved with the play.
In 2023 Richie Gray, a relatively unknown rugby coach from the small Scottish village of Galashiels, flew to Philadelphia to give a presentation on tackling to the Eagles’ defensive coaches.
While there, he was asked to see Jeff Stoutland, the Eagles’ offensive line coach, in his office. Surprised, Gray said Stoutland asked for his opinion on just one thing: how to stop his team’s signature move.
“He said, ‘I want you to look at it from a defensive point of view and how you would break it’,” Gray said.
“We spent a fair amount of time in the room with all the offensive coaches, and it was just a massive breaking down of the whole play, millimetre by millimetre. We ripped the play to bits.”
Much has been said (and many a podcast episode made) about the tush push since it started gaining attention during the 2022 season when the Eagles were successful with 25 of 27 attempts.
Calls were made to ban the move, and accusations thrown around that it is just a poorly disguised rugby scrum that has no place in the land of the free. The vitriol led Philadelphia head coach Nick Sirianni to tell reporters in 2023: “You’ve seen it across the league that people can’t do it like we can do it, and so I’m making my plug right there – don’t ban this play. If everybody could do it, everybody would.”
Even Gray can’t understand why other teams have failed to copy it.
“I’m amazed, you know, I really am,” he said.
“I watched all these teams try to do it. I watched the Bills try to do it in their playoff game, it was a huge, huge play … but I was just looking at that and thinking, ‘Oh man, that could have been done so much better’.
“I think most teams should be able to do this well, right? But nobody does.”
To Gray, the reasons the Eagles’ Brotherly Shove is the most unstoppable move in American Football is Stoutland’s coaching and the sheer size of his players. It’s simple physics.
“It’s very difficult to break organised mass, especially in football because action will always beat reaction,” Gray said.
And that is where Mailata comes in. He will be the biggest player in the Super Bowl on Monday.
“He has a huge part to play overall, but obviously in that play as well, along with all the other guys in that [offensive] line because, ultimately, it’s organised mass, and mass is more than one body,” Gray said.
Alongside Mailata in the offensive line are Mekhi Becton (165kg, 204cm), Landon Dickerson (151kg, 201cm), Lane Johnson (147kg, 201cm) and Cam Jurgens (137kg, 192cm).
The head of RMIT’s Department of Physics, Gary Bryant, says Gray is right, the physics is simple. The Eagles’ mass works like a “spear going through a group of people,” he said.
“It’s really about how much force you can get off the ground,” he added.
Also vital to the success of the tush push is the quarterback, who is propelled forward over the offensive line. The Eagles have an unusually strong player, Jalen Hurts, in that position. Videos of Hurts squatting 272kg in college have had thousands of views on YouTube.
“It definitely helps when you’ve got a QB [quarterback] that’s as powerful as him because it adds to the momentum,” Gray said.
“If you think about it … the only time that really it failed was against the Buccaneers last year when somebody actually grabbed his [Hurts’] face mask. It should have been a penalty.
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“Maybe the only way you can stop this play is illegally.”
The Eagles’ dominance with the Brotherly Shove means they have another advantage, because the more it is successful, the more they do it and the more practice they get.
“The other thing is it’s very difficult to practice, so the Eagles get reps in games because it’s not the kind of thing you can rep in training because it’s very difficult to rep defensively.”
The tush push is likely to play a key part as the Eagles chase their first Super Bowl win since 2017. But Gray doesn’t want any credit.
“The QB sneak was around long before Richie Gray,” he said.
Frances Howe is a reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
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