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Breaking down the tush push: Who can stop the Eagles, and who does short yardage best

Robert Williams

May 22, 2025
6 Min Read

Breaking down the tush push: Who can stop the Eagles, and who does short yardage best

The tush push is everywhere. The news on Wednesday that NFL owners didn’t have enough votes to ban the Eagles‘ controversial but effective quarterback sneak means it’s back for 2025 as one of the league’s most anticipated plays.

So let’s break down this play from a number of perspectives. First, we’ll examine third and fourth down with one yard to go in the NFL, how teams attack it differently and the hard numbers on success rates in short yardage. Next, we want to put the Eagles’ rhyming Jalen Hurts phenomenon into perspective compared to other teams in the same situation. Finally, we pinpoint five teams on Philadelphia’s 2025 schedule in the best position to stop the tush push.

What do teams do when they need exactly one yard?

Last season, there were nearly 1,200 plays in the NFL on third or fourth down where teams needed exactly one yard to move the chains — the exact scenario where tush is commonly pushed.

In this situation, NFL teams ran the ball 78% of the time, though there’s a wide discrepancy from one extreme to the other. The Bengals, for instance, threw the ball on 46% of their third/fourth-and-1 plays, easily the highest rate in the NFL, and still were able to convert 74% of the time. The Chargers, at the other extreme, threw the ball just once all season on 37 third/fourth-and-1 plays — and converted less than the league average at 69%. (The one pass attempt was in the fourth quarter against the Chiefs, tie game, fourth-and-1 at the Kansas City 3. Justin Herbert’s pass to Hayden Hurst fell incomplete and the Chiefs went on to score and win.)

It makes sense that NFL teams mostly run the ball when needing only one yard, because the numbers show it’s more effective than passing. Last year, teams running on third/fourth-and-1 got first downs 74% of the time, while teams throwing on those plays converted just 57%.

The Eagles actually aren’t the NFL’s best in short-yardage situations

The tush push is arguably the NFL’s most well-branded play, its reputation built over the past three seasons, but the Eagles are not the best team in the league when it comes to short yardage, nor is Hurts the best short-yardage QB.

Give him credit for high volume: Hurts led the NFL with 22 conversions on third/fourth-and-1, but he went 22-for-27, which is a solid 81% conversion rate. Among NFL quarterbacks last year, however, Buffalo’s Josh Allen went 17-for-18 (94%) and Denver rookie Bo Nix went 12-for-14 (86%). Washington QB Jayden Daniels, the Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2024, went a perfect 12-for-12 in the same situation.

Allen edged Hurts in 2023 as well — 24-for-27, compared to 23-for-27. Hurts gave the tush push its credibility in 2022, when he went 25-for-29 on third/fourth-and-1, with 10 more such conversions than any other player as the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl.

If you’re looking for the NFL’s best short-yardage team last year, it wasn’t the Eagles (76.7% on third/fourth-and-1 runs) or even the Bills (77.3%). The Commanders went 38-for-43 for an 88% clip, giving them the confidence to go for it often on fourth down.

Even when it was stopped, Philly pushed on

The beauty of the tush push in 2024 is that even when it was stopped, the Eagles still converted.

Five times all season, Hurts was stopped on third/fourth-and-1, and four of those times, the Eagles were stopped on third-and-1 for no gain, only to move the chains on fourth-and-1 from the same formation on the next play.

Stopped against the Ravens, they converted on a Hurts three-yard run on fourth-and-1. Stopped against the Packers, they went for it on fourth down and drew an encroachment penalty for a first down. Stopped against the Rams, they went for it on fourth down and drew an offsides penalty for a first down. Stopped against the Giants at the goal line, they converted on a one-yard Hurts touchdown run on fourth down.

The closest thing to a stop — and the only time all season the Eagles lost yardage on a tush push — came against the Packers in Week 1, when Philadelphia was clinging to a two-point lead late. On third-and-goal at the 1-yard line with 1:12 left, Hurts never got hold of the ball — it’s officially an aborted snap — and Saquon Barkley recovered at the 3, allowing the Eagles to salvage a short field goal on the way to 34-29 victory.

Five best shots to stop the tush push in 2025

Which NFL defenses were best at stopping third/fourth-and-1 in 2024? The top two don’t play the Eagles this season, with Baltimore holding opponents to a 56% conversion rate and Seattle limiting them to 57%. Going through the Eagles’ 2025 schedule, here are the five opponents best poised to make a rare tush stop:

Rams, Week 3: They got a third-and-1 stop on the tush push last year, only to jump offsides on fourth down. Sean McVay added two defensive tackles, Poona Ford from the Chargers and Nebraska’s Ty Hamilton in the fifth round of the draft, to help that effort.

Giants, Weeks 6/8: New York was a bottom-10 unit in total defense and run defense, but the Giants got a tush push stop last season, and adding tackle Roy Robertson-Harris and rookie edge Abdul Carter should help them improve in the trenches.

Vikings, Week 7: No other team gave up fewer conversions on third/fourth-and-1 last year than Minnesota, which allowed just 14 all season. The Vikings added Jonathan Allen to their defensive front, so they should be one of the best in short-yardage stops again in 2025.

Packers, Week 10: Green Bay got the only real tush push stop last year on the aforementioned aborted snap, and the Packers ranked fifth against third/fourth-and-1 plays in 2024, holding opponents to 63%. They lost tackle T.J. Slaton to Cincinnati in free agency but still have Kenny Clark plugging up the middle.

Chargers, Week 14: Los Angeles had the third-best stop rate on third/fourth-and-1 last year, holding opponents to 61%. They lost Ford and Morgan Cox in free agency but will continue to be stout in short yardage.

As a final note, one team that likely won’t be a force against the tush push is the Cowboys, who open the season against the Eagles on Sept. 4. Dallas had the NFL’s worst short-yardage defense last year, allowing opponents to go 18-for-20 on third/fourth-and-1 for a 90% success rate. And on one of those two stops, the Giants went for it on fourth down and converted with a six-yard gain. The Cowboys’ lone true stop, oddly enough, came against power back Derrick Henry and the Ravens.

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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