I immediately thought about the Buddy Ryan 14-person defense during yesterday's game. I know he never used it, but could he have? Was the multiple-fouls rule in place back then?
My favorite example of intentional fouling is when a team is doing an intentional safety to burn clock at the end of a game, and the entire offense holds everyone on defense. I remember the Ravens doing this to the Bengals years ago.
Isn't leaping over the top like Luvu a really dumb way of stopping the tush push? Haven't a ton of teams tried this (albeit not by trying to jump the snap)? Don't teams still do it, like the Packers did against the Eagles earlier in the playoffs? And it fails every time. I don't understand how we're four years into the tush push era, and people still don't understand how to defend it. The Chiefs figured it out yesterday. Put all your defensive force at the point of attack, which was the left guard for the Bills (the Eagles also go behind the left guard usually).
Lastly, as a former teacher, I know the immense value of having a vague rule to cover anything you can't think of. For me, it was a rule against "anything that might disrupt the classroom." Of course, only the NFL could come up with a term like palpably. It was written by the same committee that invented "unabated to the quarterback." Rodge, if you can track down someone from that committee and figure out why they do weird things with the English language, you will have delivered an immense journalistic service to us all.
I think a team defending a tush push should put their entire starting O-Line on the field and just attempt to push back with all their might. DL/LB will usually get overwhelmed by OL in the situation so why not counter with your heaviest guys?
The multiple intentional foul rule is likely as old as the game: it existed in college football in the 50s obviously, but it also exists (and is actually regularly seen) in Rugby Union, and I believe also exists but tends not to be used in the League variety of Rugby.
Nice article. But am I misreading the quote from Ryan: "So, we will stop them, get penalized half the distance to the goal, but leave them with enough time to run one play."
Sounds like that isrunning one intentionally illegal play to run off some clock and then return to normal, not running illegal multiple times.
Also, as a Rice alum, just want to note that it was unfair for JFK to make fun of Rice football in 1962 when they won the conference title over Texas as recently as 1957 (they shared the title with UT in 1953).
the Rules Sickos' Super Bowl. intentional safety at the end. very nearly a fair catch kick. if we'd gotten a title-deciding touchdown awarded due to a palpably unfair act it would've been the greatest game of all time
I don't think this is controversial at all. His foot was on the field and he put it there intentionally. Either the refs didn't clock what was happening in real time or didn't want to hit one of the most respected coaches in the league with the rarest, most humiliating penalty possible
In terms of obscure rules that I've never seen enforced, I can't help but think of the one against trying to block a kick at the crossbar. I'd love to see this removed. If it were, every team would have one high-jumping seven-footer on the roster to block long-distance field goals. And then if they blocked it, they could return it!
Great read Rodger. One thing i’d like to see a defense do to stop Tush Push is do the same thing on the other side of ball. Employ 3 linebackers to push 3 big Ol’ D tackles from the backside.
Great article. Great explanations. But I don’t think WFT committed any of the three penalties intentionally. Certainly in the first one, Luvu was trying to time the hike. And then I guess he figured he’d try again. But then he stopped. And if you watch the O-Line on the third one, three or four guys were constantly twitching and moving, trying to time the play, or get the offense to jump (5 yard penalty!). I get that, at a certain point half the distance to the goal line isn’t anything and the ref has to award a TD, but he said, and the announcers said, that WFT was doing it on purpose. They were certainly trying to time the snap on purpose, but I don’t think they were trying to get penalties on purpose. Not that it matters - in the 2d half, the Eagles just smashed them. But I think we all would have found it amazing if the refs had awarded a TD as a penalty - and outrageous if, for some reason, KC had the same beneficial result in their game and won by less than 7; now that outrage would have been palpable!
I think you're right that it wasn't "intentional"—and was actually surprised to learn that it doesn't really matter, per the rulebook. I had assumed there was something about fouls being "deliberate" or something. turns out it's just "repeated/successive"
The Polish thing is just because in the 70s “Polish” was a synonym for “dumb” and used in “changing a lightbulb” type jokes. Like the one where the Polish national football team hired a smart coach and when they played the Germans the smart coach snuck up
to the PA system and said “free beer in the parking lot” and the whole German team ran off the field and six plays later the Polish team scored.
So you essentially get three swings of cheating before they call you out on it? I would definitely add that to my goal line tush-push defense package if I were Spags.
it really should be two swings, then a warning. but one one extremely obvious cheat could trigger the palpably unfair clause. they need to medium-cheat twice
I immediately thought about the Buddy Ryan 14-person defense during yesterday's game. I know he never used it, but could he have? Was the multiple-fouls rule in place back then?
My favorite example of intentional fouling is when a team is doing an intentional safety to burn clock at the end of a game, and the entire offense holds everyone on defense. I remember the Ravens doing this to the Bengals years ago.
Isn't leaping over the top like Luvu a really dumb way of stopping the tush push? Haven't a ton of teams tried this (albeit not by trying to jump the snap)? Don't teams still do it, like the Packers did against the Eagles earlier in the playoffs? And it fails every time. I don't understand how we're four years into the tush push era, and people still don't understand how to defend it. The Chiefs figured it out yesterday. Put all your defensive force at the point of attack, which was the left guard for the Bills (the Eagles also go behind the left guard usually).
Lastly, as a former teacher, I know the immense value of having a vague rule to cover anything you can't think of. For me, it was a rule against "anything that might disrupt the classroom." Of course, only the NFL could come up with a term like palpably. It was written by the same committee that invented "unabated to the quarterback." Rodge, if you can track down someone from that committee and figure out why they do weird things with the English language, you will have delivered an immense journalistic service to us all.
I think a team defending a tush push should put their entire starting O-Line on the field and just attempt to push back with all their might. DL/LB will usually get overwhelmed by OL in the situation so why not counter with your heaviest guys?
The multiple intentional foul rule is likely as old as the game: it existed in college football in the 50s obviously, but it also exists (and is actually regularly seen) in Rugby Union, and I believe also exists but tends not to be used in the League variety of Rugby.
Nice article. But am I misreading the quote from Ryan: "So, we will stop them, get penalized half the distance to the goal, but leave them with enough time to run one play."
Sounds like that isrunning one intentionally illegal play to run off some clock and then return to normal, not running illegal multiple times.
Also, as a Rice alum, just want to note that it was unfair for JFK to make fun of Rice football in 1962 when they won the conference title over Texas as recently as 1957 (they shared the title with UT in 1953).
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/27581541/why-does-rice-play-texas-how-jfk-speech-defined-rivalry
i read the Ryan quote as "we're going to run it as many times as we need" but yeah, maybe i'm misreading it.
my theory is the JFK speech ruined Rice football. still undefeated against Bama tho
If the defense successfully thwarts a tush push, is that a butt plug?
Fascinating write-up. Thank you for this deep dive, as always
2013 Superbowl Joe Flacco playfully talked about running onto the field if Ted Ginn broke free on the kickoff after ravens took a late lead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jHAzEgn-9w
the Rules Sickos' Super Bowl. intentional safety at the end. very nearly a fair catch kick. if we'd gotten a title-deciding touchdown awarded due to a palpably unfair act it would've been the greatest game of all time
Just occurred to me that the Mike Tomlin sideline incident almost and perhaps should have been called as a palpably unfair act.
I don't think this is controversial at all. His foot was on the field and he put it there intentionally. Either the refs didn't clock what was happening in real time or didn't want to hit one of the most respected coaches in the league with the rarest, most humiliating penalty possible
In terms of obscure rules that I've never seen enforced, I can't help but think of the one against trying to block a kick at the crossbar. I'd love to see this removed. If it were, every team would have one high-jumping seven-footer on the roster to block long-distance field goals. And then if they blocked it, they could return it!
This was fascinating. I learned a lot and I'm suddenly going to sound verrrrry smart talking to my friends.
This was so much fun to read.
Come on, we held them to seven rushing TDs, not eight!
Great read Rodger. One thing i’d like to see a defense do to stop Tush Push is do the same thing on the other side of ball. Employ 3 linebackers to push 3 big Ol’ D tackles from the backside.
Great article. Great explanations. But I don’t think WFT committed any of the three penalties intentionally. Certainly in the first one, Luvu was trying to time the hike. And then I guess he figured he’d try again. But then he stopped. And if you watch the O-Line on the third one, three or four guys were constantly twitching and moving, trying to time the play, or get the offense to jump (5 yard penalty!). I get that, at a certain point half the distance to the goal line isn’t anything and the ref has to award a TD, but he said, and the announcers said, that WFT was doing it on purpose. They were certainly trying to time the snap on purpose, but I don’t think they were trying to get penalties on purpose. Not that it matters - in the 2d half, the Eagles just smashed them. But I think we all would have found it amazing if the refs had awarded a TD as a penalty - and outrageous if, for some reason, KC had the same beneficial result in their game and won by less than 7; now that outrage would have been palpable!
I think you're right that it wasn't "intentional"—and was actually surprised to learn that it doesn't really matter, per the rulebook. I had assumed there was something about fouls being "deliberate" or something. turns out it's just "repeated/successive"
The Polish thing is just because in the 70s “Polish” was a synonym for “dumb” and used in “changing a lightbulb” type jokes. Like the one where the Polish national football team hired a smart coach and when they played the Germans the smart coach snuck up
to the PA system and said “free beer in the parking lot” and the whole German team ran off the field and six plays later the Polish team scored.
I always thought it was a play on the "how many polacks" jokes from that era.
So you essentially get three swings of cheating before they call you out on it? I would definitely add that to my goal line tush-push defense package if I were Spags.
it really should be two swings, then a warning. but one one extremely obvious cheat could trigger the palpably unfair clause. they need to medium-cheat twice