Eagles Had Last Laugh On Championship Game Tush Push

The Philadelphia Eagles used the tush push to score a couple of their championship-tying seven rushing touchdown in blowout of Washington Commanders, and particulary enjoyed one of them.
Jan 26, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) after a victory in the NFC Championship game against the Washington Commanders at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
Jan 26, 2025; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) after a victory in the NFC Championship game against the Washington Commanders at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images / Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
In this story:

PHILADELPHIA – Behind his facemask, Eagles receiver DeVonta Smith was smiling. Mekhi Becton wasn’t Mic’d up, or maybe you would have heard him laughing. Perhaps Tyler Steen, too.

The one who didn’t think it was funny what the Washington Commanders were doing by continually jumping offside during the Eagles’ tush push early in the fourth quarter was head coach Nick Sirianni. Oh, and referee Shawn Hochuli, who issued a stern warning by saying he had the power to award a touchdown if the Commanders kept jumping offsides. And that was funny.

Again, not to Sirianni, though he said he was aware of the rule and even asked the official if he could award a touchdown if Washington kept jumping offsides. But fun?

“No, not really, not particularly,” he said on Tuesday, about 48 hours after his team thumped Washington, 55-23 to reach Super Bowl LX. “I just wanted our guys…obviously I was thinking about the safety and health of our players.”

That is a coach’s job, after all.

A players’ job, among other things, is to have fun, and the Eagles got a kick out of Frankie Luvu’s two fruitless attempts at jumping over the offensive line, trying to time the snap count, and tackle’s Jonathan Allen’s plunge into the neutral zone on another. All three players were flagged for offsides.

“That was hilarious,” said Becton. “That was funny to me. I was laughing the whole time. There were a few guys up there screaming come on, let’s run the play, line up, then when we did run it, we took it into the end zone. It’s a fun play. It hurts, but it’s fun.”

Before Jalen Hurts could tush-push his way in from the 1-inch line, Hochuli had his choice words, sending the crowd into delirium and a full-house press in the press box into laughter.

“I didn’t know you could actually award a touchdown,” said Steen. “I was OK with that. We can do that. I thought it was funny. I wanted them to do it again to see if it would happen for real. I didn’t know that was a rule.

“That was kind of their way of trying to stop it, I guess, because they didn’t have too many answers for it, so their way of kind of stopping it was jumping offsides or beating the snap count. If you beat the snap count, we’re not going on one, so you’re gonna keep being offsides.”

The tush push that the Eagles do so well, but no other team can figure out, angered the dwindling group of grumps who still want it banned. This one gave the Eagles a 41-23 with 12:24 to play in the fourth quarter, all but sealing the outcome.

The Eagles scored seven rushing touchdowns in the blowout, which tied the record for most rushing scores in a playoff game set back in 1940 when the Bears did it ironically enough against Washington.

“We just kept scoring touchdowns,” said Steen. “I didn’t know how it was happening, but it was happening. That was crazy, but a good performance.”

The Eagles point total was the most ever put up in a championship game.

We scored 50-something points,” said Steen. “Scoring touchdowns is really fun. And obviously, it was a big game, the stakes were high, stuff like that, so yeah that was cool.”

More NFL: Eagles Pass Rusher Becoming More Than "A Small Fish In Big Pond"


Published |Modified
Ed Kracz
ED KRACZ

Ed Kracz has been covering the Eagles full-time for over a decade and has written about Philadelphia sports since 1996. He wrote about the Phillies in the 2008 and 2009 World Series, the Flyers in their 2010 Stanely Cup playoff run to the finals, and was in Minnesota when the Eagles secured their first-ever Super Bowl win in 2017. Ed has received multiple writing awards as a sports journalist, including several top-five finishes in the Associated Press Sports Editors awards.