Philadelphia Eagles Served Warning by NFL on ‘Brotherly Shove’

PHILADELPHIA – The NFL has served notice to the Philadelphia Eagles about their infamous quarterback sneak. Center Jason Kelce revealed during his ‘New Heights’ podcast that the league sent a letter alerting Philly that it is lining up offsides on the contentious “Tush Push,” or “Brotherly Shove” as it’s becoming known in Philadelphia.

“They’re always sending us notices,” said Kelce. “Obviously, the last two years we were getting a lot of notice for offensive linemen downfield, so there’s always things that they’re going to try to give you a heads up to make sure you’re not blindsided by things you’re not prepared for or know that are going to be called.”

Nick Sirianni didn’t want to comment much on the letter. The Eagles coach said on Wednesday, prior to practice as the team prepares for its cross-country flight to meet the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, that he preferred to keep the details of the NFL letter in-house.

“We’ll just keep our conversations with the league private, like anything they said back to us if we turn anything in or anything like that,” said Sirianni. “They do a great job of giving us information and I want to keep those conversations private with us and the NFL.

“We have to make sure that we don’t leave any doubt on the field that we’re legal during that play because, like Jason said, there was an emphasis on it this week.”

Kelce said that the refs mistakenly threw a penalty flag on Landon Dickerson, believing he was offsides during Sunday’s game against the Washington Commanders. The center said that it was his hand on the ball they saw, not Dickerson’s hand.

“I talked to the officials,” Dickerson said. “I know there was something a couple of weeks ago about my hand placement, where they wanted it on the ball. I asked them, where can my hands be in relation? And they told me behind that back tip of the ball.

“So I placed my hands behind the back tip of the ball. They call what they call. It is what it is. You can complain about that. I’m sure people complain about calls for other teams we play. It’s football. Some can argue there’s a penalty on every play. It just depends on what the referees are seeing and assessing.”

And, speaking of hands, Kelce asserted that Commanders defensive tackle Daron Payne had his hand under the ball prior to the snap. So, if anything, Payne should have been called for encroachment.

Instead, the call backed up the Eagles five yards and they punted rather than go for 3rd and 6 near midfield on their second possession of what became a 34-31 overtime win over the Commanders last Sunday.

“I’m not here to argue whether the call was right or wrong on that,” Sirianni said. “I’m always going to think that we’re right, but, again, the league does a good job of giving us information. We understand that the referees have a tough job to do. I’m never going to criticize that aspect of it.

“Are all the calls going to go the way we want them to go? No. Are they always going to be right? No, but neither is what I do.”

The Eagles are successful at executing the play more often than not, while some teams in the league, and at the college level, too, have tried it, but without the same success as the Eagles.

“I think whenever there’s controversy around something there seems to be more attention on it and it tends to be called more,” said Kelce. “I think that happens especially early on in seasons when there’s a lot of emphasis on new rules or rules they want to emphasize, so you have to try that much hard to make sure you’re being legal, so there’s no way they can call it.”

The New York Giants tried it during their blowout loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night and two offensive linemen got hurt.

It comes down to personnel, and the Eagles have it with a Hall of Fame center in Kelce and the powerful legs of quarterback Jalen Hurts. Other teams simply do not.

Ed Kracz:

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