NFL owners keep status quo for Tush Push, players in Olympics; Playoff format unchanged

The NFL owners voted on several potential changes to the league rules in 2025.

The NFL owners met this week in Minnesota, with the agenda including votes on several rules that had been tabled during the April meeting. This week’s meeting featured just the owners themselves, while the previous meeting included general managers and head coaches. Several noteworthy items were considered this week, though a couple of the bigger resolutions failed.

Included on the agenda were changes to the rules allowing ball carriers to be pushed by their teammates – essentially a rule change to ban the “tush push” used to perfection by the Philadelphia Eagles. The owners also considered a change to the playoff format and whether NFL players would be allowed to participate in the 2028 Olympics’ flag football tournament.

Tush Push

Previously, the NFL had banned any direct assistance to a ball carrier, outlawing it from the league’s founding until 2005. There have been plenty of incidents of a running back or wide receiver getting stood up down the field, but not being tackled, with several of his teammates running to the play and shoving him forward for several more years. That did not seem to draw the ire of fans or teams

The “tush push,” also known as the “Brotherly Shove” due to the Eagles’ success with the play, does, however, bother some people in and out of the game. This play is a quarterback sneak, with the running backs in the backfield immediately slamming into the quarterback, shoving him forward for the short-yardage conversion.

The Green Bay Packers proposed a rule change to remove the play. During the April meeting, the proposal was specifically aimed at the tush push and was tabled until this week’s meeting. Recently, the Packers added clarification to their proposal, aligning back to the original league’s rule of no pushing a ball carrier in any situation.

The proposal was voted down by the owners, allowing for the tush push to continue at least during the 2025 season. Needing 24 of the 32 owners to vote in favor of any rule change, the tush push ban received 22 votes. Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross was one of the owners to vote against the proposed change.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, joining the Dolphins in voting down the change were the Eagles, the Baltimore Ravens, the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Lions, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the New England Patriots, the New Orleans Saints, the New York Jets, and the Tennessee Titans.

The Buffalo Bills, who are probably the second most successful team to use the play, were among the teams to vote for the ban. They were also the only AFC East team to vote for it.

Much of the arguments against the play focus on the difficulty to stop it. That concern was not enough to lead to the ban, however.

During the NFL Scouting Combine back in February, Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel spoke about the play and if he believed it should be outlawed. He stated, “It’s tough because I have a hard time making things illegal because of success. However, I think in my mind it’s a different thing if it’s a safety issue. For me in the game of football, when your job is to take 11 people, possess the ball, move it down the field to try to get in the end zone to score points, I think because it’s successful I have a hard time being that the teeth of the argument to move on from it. That’s just my opinion; I do understand both sides.”

Patriots’ head coach Mike Vrabel also spoke about the potential rule change, pointing to other plays that are tough to stop. “There’s a lot of plays that you have to defend, whether that’s quarterback sneaks, whether that’s read zone — there’s a lot of plays that are hard to defend, and I don’t think that you can get rid of them every time that you have a tough time stopping it. I mean, Lamar Jackson shouldn’t be able to run with the football anymore, how about making that rule? That’s tough to defend.”

As soon as the news broke that the Packers’ proposal had been defeated, the Eagles had a perfect response on X:

Playoff Format

The Detroit Lions had proposed to change the playoff seeding to a straight-seeding process based on records. Essentially, they wanted to remove the league rule that awarded a home game to a division champion, allowing for a wild card team to host a division champion if the wild card team had a better record during the regular season. No longer would division champions be slotted in the top four seeded positions.

Last year, the 14-3 Minnesota Vikings finished the season as the fifth-seeded team in the NFC, having to travel during Wild Card Weekend to face the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Rams, who finished the year 10-7. The game was played in Arizona due to the wild fires in California at the time, but under the Lions’ proposal, the Rams and the third-seeded Tampa Bay Buccaneers would have become the sixth- and seventh-seeded teams in the playoffs, with Minnesota hosting a first-round game against the Buccaneers, rewarding the Vikings for their 14-3 record.

The Lions pulled their proposal before a vote because there was not enough support for it. The rule change could be revisited for 2026, but at least for the 2025 season, there will be no change to the playoff format, continuing to reward teams for winning their division.

2028 Summer Olympics

The 2028 Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, with flag football set to make its debut in the games. The NFL owners voted unanimously to allow NFL players to participate in the games.

“It’s an incredible honor for any athlete to represent their country in the Olympics, which is the pinnacle of global sport,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said after the vote. “I know first-hand that the inclusion of flag football in the Olympics has sparked a tremendous amount of excitement among NFL players interested in the chance to compete for their country on the world stage. We are thrilled that they will now have that chance.”

Teams will have 10-player rosters for a five-on-five game. Six men’s teams and six women’s teams will participate in the tournament. The NFL will work with the NFL Players Association, the National Olympic Committee of the nations involved in the games, and the Olympic governing body to assist with roster building and reaching agreements with each of them.

Under the approved resolution, a maximum of one player off an NFL team’s roster can be selected for the games. An international player for each team can also be selected by their respective home nation. Players will have to go through a “try out” process for their country’s team, with college and current flag football players eligible for consideration as well.

Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill posted on X after the announcement that NFL players will be eligible for the games: