The NFL won't be discussing a proposal to ban the tush push this offseason, but there could be further conversations about other ways that offensive players aid ball carriers.
NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said on Monday that the deadline for a team to propose a tush push ban has passed without the Competition Committee seeing one, so there won't be a replay of last year's vote on the play. That vote fell short of the 24 votes needed to institute a ban and the issue seemed to lose steam as defenses had more success stopping the play than they had in 2024.
Vincent did say that the committee has discussed other aspects of assisting ball carriers, however. They have looked at plays featuring offensive players pulling or carrying teammates as we saw with 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey in the regular season and Bills quarterback Josh Allen in the postseason.
"We talked about aiding the runner. . . . I mean, we saw players being literally picked up and kind of walked into the end zone," Vincent said, via Mark Maske. "Is that what we really want? But nothing on the actual [play] of when we talk about someone being behind the quarterback or the tight end, whoever is under the center, and push.”
There is already a rule prohibiting pulling a runner or "grasping a teammate or by using his hands or arms to encircle the body of a teammate in an effort to block an opponent," but it is not called. Depending on how conversations unfold from here, that could become a point of emphasis for officials in 2026.