Every year, The Athletic does an anonymous players’ poll on football-adjacent topics in the zeitgeist. Last season, they asked about who should be on the Olympic flag football team, Taylor Swift, and the best field to play on — all pretty ‘geisty things at the time.
This year, the topics are about some things that were a little bit more controversial to non-players: The banning of the Tush Push, Tom Brady being both an owner and a broadcaster and the new kickoff rules. You’ll be absolutely not shocked at all to learn that the legacy media people have blown it out of proportion, and most players don’t actually care about this stuff at all.
The quotes come directly from The Athletic’s articles discussing the results of their polls.
Should the Tush Push be banned?
Last offseason, the Packers’ then-president, Mark Murphy, spearheaded the banning of the Tush Push. It turns out that it might’ve actually been Roger Goodell using Murphy as a puppet to do his bidding, but that has neither been confirmed nor denied.
It also hasn’t been confirmed or denied that Goodell’s insatiable desire for the play to be banned comes from the play being named “Tush Push.” You’ve got to think that if it were globally known as the Brotherly Shove, or Snoopy (which is what the team actually calls it), then the Commish would probably chill out about it.
Regardless, there’s a discussion about the play, but how do players feel about it?
“It’s just a part of the game. S—, we should start using it, too.”
There’s something very funny about a player being introspective and questioning why a very successful play isn't in their playbook. It also makes you kind of wonder which head coaches and which offensive coordinators are so extremely anti-TP that it makes their players yearn for a semblance of success.
“…you’re looking at banning quarterback sneaks. It’s the same thing, just better executed.”
Thank you very much, anonymous player. Tom Brady spent two decades running QB sneaks at an insanely high and insanely effective rate; he converted on 90.5% of his attempts. The Tush Push is just a sneak with a twist, and the twist is two additional players who also need to execute. There’s an argument that it’s more difficult because of more moving pieces.
These are all perfect arguments made by very rational people… But not every response was that way. Three people had something to say about the officiating.
“It's too hard to officiate. You can win or lose the game on that one play.”
This is a bad-faith argument for four reasons: A play being hard to officiate isn’t a reason to ban it. The refs are bad at officiating pre-snap penalties, not what’s happening with the push. Refs are bad at officiating everything. And there are 60-ish plays a game, you don’t win or lose because of one of them.
“It's bulls--- rugby, it's not a football play, it's a rugby play.”
I love this bit: regardless of how many people (including Jordan Mailata, who famously played professional rugby) say that this isn’t a rugby play, there will always be a concussion uncle out there who calls it a rugby play. Die on whatever hill you want.
Is it a problem that Tom Brady is both an owner of a team and a broadcaster?
If you don’t remember, way back in Week 2, the Monday Night Football cameras looked up into the Raiders’ coaches' booth and saw Tom Brady with a headset on.
This was potentially a problem because broadcast teams get to have production meetings with players and coaches, where they give a little more information than you normally get. With Tom Brady being a Raiders owner, that means there’s a real possibility that he gets that information in one week and then the Raiders could use it against them in a different week. Again, potentially.
It’s a benefit that no other team in the NFL has, and it makes sense that people could have some extreme opinions on it. Alas, here’s what more anonymous players had to say.
“I feel like he's earned the right to do that. He's respected by a lot of people, with him being one of the greatest to play the game.”
Being good at your job will open a lot of doors for you and get you a whole lot more slack than other people. Can you imagine if this were Matt Ryan we’re talking about? He did quit his job at CBS when he took over as president of the Falcons, so we’ll never actually know. But if he did both, you have to imagine the quotes would be, ‘Maybe he earned the right to do that. He was pretty good, I guess. That whole 28-3 thing is a pretty big blemish. I don’t know. It’s kind of weird, and I don’t like it.’
“Teams just have to be mindful of what you tell him, just like with any broadcaster or reporter.”
This is the right answer. If teams don’t want Tom Brady and the Raiders to know what they’re doing, then just don’t tell him.
It’s not like he’s a secret agent, some guy who you forget is the owner of a team, or anything like that. It’s Tom Brady; your conversation with him is going to be the most important conversation that you have that week.
“The Raiders f---ing suck. How is it helping with that? What are we talking about?”
If the last one was the right answer, this is the realest answer. The Raiders were the worst team in football. That means one of two things: teams were either not giving Brady any information, or they were giving him completely phony information that he was trying to use.
“Even if Tom is being careful, the optics are not good, and it could create an ugly situation down the road.”
This anonymous player thinks very highly of the Raiders. The only way this could turn into an “ugly situation down the road” is if the Raiders became a competent and competitive team. In the past 20 years, they’ve had a winning record twice, and their overall record is 118-195. Freezing-cold prediction: They’re not going to be turning it around any time soon and this will end up not mattering at all.
What’s up with the new kickoff?
The entire idea of the Dynamic Kickoff (the new kickoff) was to make the play safer. With guys lining up 10-ish yards from each other, it meant they weren’t going to have the entire field to build up momentum for needless big hits. But when they went to the new kickoff in 2024, they didn’t punish teams enough for kicking touchbacks. Going into the 2025 season, they changed the rules and made it so a touchback means the offense starts at the 35-yard line instead of the 30.
It turns out that the extra five yards were enough to get teams to quit it with the touchbacks, and there were the most returned kicks since the 2010 season.
That’s kind of where the issue is. A touchback means that there is no play. In theory, that means there are no collisions, and fewer collisions means healthier players. So the NFL made the play safer, but then they also made it a real play, which increases the injury rate… or so it seemed.
The anonymous poll gave some pretty insightful answers from the people who are actually on the field.
“I love it. The old one got ruthless. You're running down, and it's a big crash every time. It's now close space, and you're starting to see bigger guys on the (coverage) team. There's more variety. Of course, you don't have as many trick plays and stuff like that, but they made it better.”
I guess I never really thought about what happens on touchbacks. Before the ball actually came down, guys were still smashing into each other. Maybe those didn’t necessarily turn into injuries, but those kinds of hits add up and take some tread off.
The big hits where ball carriers get decleated are the ones that make you think, ‘That was sick, but it probably didn’t really need to happen.’ It’s the stuff that happens with the other 20 guys on the field that are more of an issue, apparently… And it makes a whole lot of sense that those guys like not having to deal with the needless contact.
“I don’t think anyone has cracked it yet. I’m excited to see the first person that really cracks it and starts running some unique stuff to get touchdowns.”
When the new kickoff got introduced, special teams coordinators were excited that it was going to essentially be a large-scale zone running play. So far, the big kick returns that we’ve seen have been because of these burner returners who have great vision and playmaking ability.
There haven’t been a whole lot of returns where you look at the blocks and say, ‘Oh, I see what they did. That was a good, smart play.’
This answer is purely just good vibes; it's nice that the players still have some hope that those zone schemes can work. Especially since the other option is for teams to just know they’ve screwed if they don’t have one of the three or four elite returners in the league.
“You kick the ball the wrong way, that s--- could start at the 35 (yard line), I ain’t feeling that. Now you’re 15 yards from a field goal.”
Whoever said this has a decent point. On one hand, you could say this about the old kickoff. If the kicker shanks a kick and it goes out of bounds, the defense is in a bad spot… but with the new rule, and the landing zone that the kickers have to hit, a significant amount of field position is decided by the least football playery football player on the roster. Larry David hates this.