PALM BEACH, Fla. – The tush push lives. For now.
A proposal advanced by the Green Bay Packers to ban the short-yardage play pioneered and perfected by the Philadelphia Eagles was not voted on at the NFL Annual Meeting this week at The Breakers, meaning it could be taken up when league ownership convenes again in May.
Colts head coach Shane Steichen – who was part of the Eagles coaching staff that began implementing the tush push in short-yardage situations anywhere on the field a few years ago – said this week he doesn't support the effort to ban the play.
"I'm not in favor of taking it out," Steichen said. "I think it's good for the game. What they (the Eagles) do, they do it better than anyone. Other teams are doing it, Buffalo's doing it. I think it's been around for a long time, to be completely honest, because when you're on the half-yard line and backed up, you gotta run a QB sneak. People usually back there pushing. They just brought it to the field of play a couple of years ago. I'm in favor of keeping it."
The Colts tried to run the play a few times during Steichen's first season as head coach in 2023. Quarterback Anthony Richardson was stopped short of the sticks on a fourth-and-one attempt in the Colts' 2023 season opener.
"We tried to do it early my first year.," Steichen said. "We ran it against Jacksonville Week 1, fourth and 1, and we didn't get anything. And I was like, oh shoot, well we gotta keep looking at this."
In Week 10 of 2023, quarterback Gardner Minshew II wasn't able to get into the end zone on a third-and-goal tush push against the New England Patriots in Germany. Running back Jonathan Taylor scored a touchdown on the next play.
The Colts did not attempt a tush push in 2024, but that doesn't mean Steichen won't look to run it again in the future – so long as the play is still legal.
"It's still in our offense," Steichen said. We still have it."
Dynamic kickoff here to stay, with a few tweaks
The NFL made a major change to kickoffs in 2024, scrapping the traditional look of players running up and down the field for the "dynamic" kickoff, which has 10 players on the kicking team lined up to defend the return at the 40-yard line. Those players are not allowed to move until the receiving team, which must have nine players between the 30- and 35-yard line, catches the kick.
The goal of the dynamic kickoff was to create more action on kickoffs – which had become borderline ceremonial plays over the last few years – while reducing the risk of injuries on those plays.
Injuries indeed went down on kickoffs, per the NFL, but teams frequently booted kickoffs deep into the end zone or out of the end zone for touchbacks, giving the ball to an opposing offense on the 30-yard line.
To incentivize more kickoff returns, the league this week approved a resolution to move the offense's starting field position on touchbacks to the 35-yard line.
Wide receiver Ashton Dulin recorded the Colts' longest dynamic kickoff return in 2024, a 43-yarder in Week 11 against the New York Jets.
Regular season overtime gets a tweak
Overtime in regular season games will now allow both teams to have a chance to possess the ball, aligning regular season and playoff overtime rules. Prior to the league passing this resolution this week, the first team to possess the ball in overtime could end the game with a touchdown on their opening drive. Teams that allowed a field goal to open overtime still had a chance to tie or win the game on an ensuing possession.
The Colts have won two overtime games on a touchdown since 1994, though only one was an a first-drive touchdown. That game was Week 8 win over the Tennessee Titans in 2012, when quarterback Andrew Luck completed a pass to running back Vick Ballard, who acrobatically dove into the end zone for a game-ending 16-yard touchdown. The Titans did not possess the ball on offense in that overtime period.
The Colts' other overtime touchdown came when Minshew found wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. for a four-yard score in 2023, though that came after the Titans took a three-point lead to open overtime on a field goal.
