NFL owners voted to table the Packers’ proposal to ban the “Tush Push” at last week’s owners’ meetings. However, Packers CEO Mark Murphy remains undaunted in his belief that the proposal will get passed.
“I think it ended up in a good place,” Murphy said in a video released by the team. “We ended up tabling it, but we had a really good discussion, talked a little bit about our safety concerns regarding the play, just kind of the style of the play, but good interaction with the league and so it’ll be tabled and then what we’re going to do is it’ll be voted on in the May meeting and so we’re going to go — in 2005, the league did away with the rule that you couldn’t push runners and so we’re going to go back and see the language that we had in 2004 and I’m optimistic. I think there’s enough people that kind of look at it and say it’s really not good for the game, it’s more a rugby play than a football play, just kind of go back to what used to be the rule.”
Murphy cited Bart Starr’s quarterback sneak in the 1967 Ice Bowl, perhaps the most famous touchdown in Packers history, where running back Chuck Mercein raised his hands to show that he was not pushing Starr into the end zone.
“In the Ice Bowl, Bart Starr’s touchdown, talking to Chuck Mercein, a lot of people thought when he put his hands up that he was signaling touchdown, but he was showing that he wasn’t pushing Bart Starr,” Murphy said.
The Packers began and ended their season last year with losses to the Eagles.
