The Philadelphia Eagles are the team to beat. In the past, we’ve seen teams like the Cowboys draft players like Mazi Smith, who were supposed to have specific skill sets to be able to stop what the Eagles do. The Packers took a different approach this offseason.
Instead of trying to build their defense to stop the Eagles' offense, their President, Mark Murphy, decided to embarrass himself and their organization by trying, and failing, to ban the Brotherly Shove.
The Packers are Anti-football
The Eagles go to Green Bay on Monday night in Week 10 for a rematch of the 2024 wild card game that the Eagles won 22-10.
For the sake of fairness (which the Packers don’t deserve), it’s worth noting what they did right this offseason… It’s also easy to note what they did right because it’s literally just one thing: drafting wide receiver Matthew Golden in the first round.
In the wild card round of the 2024 playoffs, the Packers' offense couldn’t do anything. Jordan Love threw for 212 yards, zero touchdowns, and three interceptions. Most of that was due to the Eagles' defense dominating, but Love didn’t exactly get much help from his pass catchers.
Not only were they wholly ineffective, but they were dropping like flies. Christian Watson jacked up his knee in Week 18 while Romeo Doubs and Jayden Reed left the game because of injuries.
Golden’s not a blue-chip prospect or anything like that, but getting your franchise quarterback some help so the offense could maybe move the ball against the best defense in the NFL is probably a good move.
What they didn’t do was add anyone substantial to their defense, which allowed 131 yards through the air and 169 yards on the ground in that game. They signed mediocre cornerback Nate Hobbs, underperforming linebacker Isaiah Simmons, and they used a fourth-round pick on an edge rusher. Yawn.
Instead, they focused on being rats and tried to ban the Brotherly Shove… and they failed.
Back in February, Mark Murphy answered a question in his monthly column. He was asked about his thoughts on the play, and he answered:
“I am not a fan of this play. There is no skill involved and it is almost an automatic first down on plays of a yard or less. The series of plays with the Commanders jumping offsides in the NFC Championship Game to try to stop the play was ridiculous. The referee even threatened to give the Eagles an automatic touchdown if the Commanders did not stop it. I would like to see the league prohibit pushing or aiding the runner (QB) on this play. There used to be a rule prohibiting this, but it is no longer enforced because I believe it was thought to be too hard for the officials to see. The play is bad for the game, and we should go back to prohibiting the push of the runner. This would bring back the traditional QB sneak. That worked pretty well for Bart Starr and the Packers in the Ice Bowl.”
That’s so unbelievably pathetic and out of touch. After that, he submitted a rule proposal that banned pushing the ball carrier “immediately at the snap.” What does “immediately” mean? That’s a hell of a question, and it would be a judgment call for the refs. No one wants more rules that rely on a referee to make a judgment call. That initial rule proposal got tabled at the spring owners meetings so that they could vote on it at the owners meetings in May.
Then, on Monday, May 19th, ESPN reported that the Packers revised their proposal. They got rid of the “immediately after the snap” part; instead, they wrote “offensive players cannot assist the runner except by individually blocking opponents for him.”
That would mean going back to the early 2000s rules — to the pre-Bush Push time. The new wording would’ve made it so no one, including linemen, could help push a runner. That would be more dangerous on way many more plays.
Players on defense are trained to fly in, make hits, and gang tackle. When an offensive lineman gets up on a running back who’s wrapped up, they’re not just pushing them forward, they’re also protecting him from some Frankie Luvu-type dingdong who wants to make cheap hits with the crown of his helmet.
Penalizing offensive linemen for being there would leave ball carriers wide open for those types of shots that they don’t need to take.
That’s a bunch of ‘what-ifs’ though. The Brotherly Shove didn’t get banned, and now the Packers (and the other 21 teams that voted for the ban) look like cowards afraid to compete.
If aliens came to Earth and you had to explain the general concept of competition to them, one of the first three things you would say would be along the lines of, ‘the other team does something, and you have to adapt and find a way to beat that thing.’
Instead of adapting, these loser franchises (specifically the Packers) tried to go and legislate their way out of it off the field.
The beautiful part of this is that in Murphy’s initial mailbag, he brought up Bart Starr in the Ice Bowl. Vince Lombardi was the head coach of the Packers at that time, and he was the one who came up with the “Packers Sweep” out of the T-Formation.
The beauty of that play was that everyone on the field executed everything with perfection — which is the exact same thing the Eagles do on the Brotherly Shove.
The T-formation was a relatively predictable formation. Defenses (and the league) adapted, and now we don’t see it nearly as much anymore. The Brotherly Shove or “We already know what time it is” formation is wildly predictable. The difference is that instead of putting in effort to learn to stop it, or getting a huge Vita Vea-type nose tackle, the Packers and most of the NFL are trying to take the easy way out.
Taking the easy way out is Anti-football. This offseason, the Packers showed their true colors that they are an Anti-football, loser-mentality, weak organization. They should be embarrassed, and their fans should be ashamed.