Anyone who watches the game of football has probably heard the saying that “football is a game of inches” in the past, and that has never rang more true than today. The Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs will meet up for Super Bowl LIX, and both teams might not be in this game if they didn’t make a crucial play in their respective championship games where mere inches decided the outcome.
In the NFC Championship, the Eagles deployed their now famous “tush push” against the Washington Commanders to pick up key 1st downs in their 55-23 win. Essentially, it’s the QB sneak on steroids. QB Jalen Hurts lines up under center with multiple running backs behind him, snaps the ball, and everyone just slams into him to push him forward for a first down. It’s been nearly unstoppable since the team came up with it, so much so that some NFL general managers want it banned from the game. However, as long as it is a legal formation, you can bet the Eagles are going to use it to pick up those inches.
The Chiefs defense will likely be tasked with stopping it at some point, which is a very tall task, but it isn’t impossible. In the AFC Championship game, the Buffalo Bills tried their own version of the tush push against Kansas City, and were successful on just two of six attempts. That includes a critical, and now very controversial, fourth down play late in the game that swung the game in the Chiefs favor. Clearly, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has discovered a way to at least show some resistance to the play. You could argue that the Eagles might be easier to stop, considering Hurts is far smaller than Bills QB Josh Allen.
So, how exactly did the Chiefs manage to be so successful against the Bills in these short yardage situations? The answer is actually pretty simple: they knew Buffalo was going to push to the left side of the line. In their regular season matchup, the Bills went 2-for-2 on tush push plays, both with Allen moving to the left side. The first and second time the Bills used the play in the AFC Championship game, they ran it left with Allen to pick up a first down. Kansas City started to get smart and figured out that Buffalo was only running to the left, and they managed to stop them the next four straight times they used the tush push.
If you go and look at the unsuccessful attempts by Buffalo in the game, look at the Chiefs defense. It is pretty clear that they knew exactly where to line up to collapse where Allen would be pushing. This is what we call expert scouting and film watching by the Chiefs, being able to notice something like that and execute their defense nearly perfectly to stop it. As soon as the Bills were successful the first time on the play, and Allen pushed left, they knew they could sell out to that side.
Philly is a bit different, as they like to just snap the ball and push straight ahead. In Super Bowl LVII between these same teams, the Eagles went 8-for-8 on tush push attempts. They got a first down or a touchdown on all eight plays. However, ever since the Eagles lost all-pro center Jason Kelce, their success rate on the play has dropped. They were converting at a 90.8% clip with Kelce, and since he retired, that success rate has dropped to 81.4%.
Of course, this play doesn’t decide the games, as the Chiefs won 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII with the Eagles converting every attempt of the tush push. However, we know that these games can often come down to inches, and the Bills might be playing Philly if they had just been able to be self-aware enough to push right. We’ll see if Kansas City can have more success in this game than they did in 2023.
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