Over the past few seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles have become famous for their quarterback push play in short-yardage situations, where players line up behind quarterback Jalen Hurts and push him over and through the pile. The play is perfectly legal as long as the defenders are pushing and not pulling the quarterback. But during Monday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a flag should have been thrown.
As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk points out, Philadelphia Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert should have been flagged for a penalty when he pulled quarterback Jalen Hurts.
“Last night, when the Eagles lined up in their trademark formation near the Tampa Bay end zone on third and goal, the effort by Jalen Hurts to score six points included not a push from tight end Dallas Goedert but an effort to pull him across the white stripe. Goedert did it again on fourth down, but it wasn’t as obvious,” Florio wrote for Pro Football Talk.
In the team’s postgame interviews, Goedert even seemed to admit that he was pulling Hurts, saying he was “yanking” his quarterback.
“I was yanking him for sure,” Goedert said. “They say you can’t pull, but I was behind him.”
It probably should have been a flag, but the Eagles got away with it.
