The NFL competition committee put forth its eight proposed rule and bylaw changes for the 2026 season on Tuesday. Those changes, along with two submitted by NFL clubs, will be debated and then voted on by the NFL owners during their annual meeting in Phoenix next week.
But after years of spirited discussion on the matter, the Tush Push will not be on the docket this season.
The competition committee again declined to propose a rule change banning the play, and after a proposal by the Green Bay Packers was very narrowly defeated in 2025, no team has stepped up to carry the torch against the play this year. So at least for 2026, the play will live on.
According to competition committee chairman, former Atlanta Falcons CEO Rich McKay, the committee has never had an appetite for banning the play, despite the closeness of last year's vote, which came eight teams short of passing. But he cautioned that just because it isn't up for discussion this year, doesn't mean that the Tush Push is here to stay.
"I don't know that it's the end of the debate, because I think there's still people that are concerned with the whole pushing element," McKay said in an NFL conference call on Wednesday. "But I would say to you that, just like last year I told you – there was no competition committee proposal last year on the tush push, there was no proposal the year before on that. And over the years, we've now seen that the tush push is going down. The percentage of, or I should say the number of plays it's being used on, is going down. The success rate on the traditional sneak is above the tush push success rate.
"So, I just think there's less talk about it within the football community, and there was no proposal on the table to put anything in this year to deal with that. I think that there's a position in there we take about open field and pushing and pulling – it's in there just about the whistle and making sure that we're as consistent as we can be in that moment, but not directed to the tush push."
Not mentioned was the NFL's consistent inability to correctly officiate the play, which inflamed many in 2025, and seemed to be a reason that could have brought more teams into the fold after it was just narrowly passed last spring.
The Pittsburgh Steelers were already one of the teams to vote against the Tush Push.
"I don't think it's the end of the world that it's not banned," Rooney said last year. "I was for it, but even if we passed the ban, we're still going to have QB sneaks in the game. I think more was made out of it than it was."
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now : Here to Stay? No Discussion on Banning Tush Push in 2026
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