Tag: eagles brotherly shove

4-Down Territory: Brock Purdy, first coach fired, Brotherly Shove, Worst of the Week!

Brock Purdy, Superstar? First coach fired? Ban the “Brotherly Shove?” Worst of the Week? It’s time for this week’s 4-Down Territory!

With five weeks of actual football in the books for the 2023 NFL season, it’s time for Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire, and Kyle Madson of Niners Wire, to come to the table with their own unique brand of analysis in “4-Down Territory.”

This week, the guys discuss these four downs:

  1. Is 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy a cog in Kyle Shanahan’s offense, or a scheme-transcendent superstar?
  2. Who might be the first coach fired in the 2023 season?
  3. Should the NFL ban the Philadelphia Eagles’ “Brotherly Shove?”
  4. What was the Worst of Week 5?

You can watch this week’s episode of “4-Down Territory” right here:

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”https://cdn5.anyclip.com/3nulF4sByCInKlSNQrjq/1696909689597_248x140_thumbnail.jpg” playlistId=”undefined” content=”PHNjcmlwdCBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vcGxheWVyLnBvcHRvay5jb20vYW55Y2xpcC13aWRnZXQvbHJlLXdpZGdldC9wcm9kL3YxL3NyYy9scmUuanMiIGRhdGEtYXI9IjE2OjkiIGRhdGEtcGxpZD0iZ254aGszY2dncnp1ZTZrZGpmeGV3M2N0anppeGUydHIiIHB1Ym5hbWU9IjE5OTgiIHdpZGdldG5hbWU9IjAwMTZNMDAwMDJVMEIxa1FBRl9NODMyNSI+Cjwvc2NyaXB0Pg==”][/anyclip-media]

You can also listen and subscribe to the “4-Down Territory” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

The Eagles’ Brotherly Shove is awesome, and the NFL should never ban it

The NFL might outlaw the Eagles’ “Brotherly Shove” after the 2023 season, which is an unwarranted blow to functional ingenuity.

There are times when the NFL can’t seem to get out of its own way. On Sunday morning, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the league is looking to possibly get rid of the Philadelphia Eagles’ “Tush Push” or “Brotherly Shove” — the wedge play that only Philly seems to be able to convert nearly automatically.

Let’s be clear here — the NFL only cares about injury data when it’s forced to. This is likely about grumpy owners of other teams complaining to the league office about something they can’t run, and they can’t stop.

It happened again at the end of the first half of the Eagles’ game against the Los Angeles Rams. For contrast, the Arizona Cardinals were trying a similar short-yardage thing against the Cincinnati Bengals, with not quite the same results.

Let’s be clear — the Eagles can do this because they have the NFL’s best offensive line, and the best offensive line coach in Jeff Stoutland. They have a center in Jason Kelce who can get below anybody trying to put a move on quarterback Jalen Hurts, and they have a quarterback in Jalen Hurts who is a guided missile in those situations.

Why should the Eagles be penalized with the removal of their automatic win just because other teams can’t figure out how to do it?

Two Giants players were injured on that play, and that’s unfortunate, but if you look at the overall data, it’s inconclusive at best. The furor over this thing reminds me of a certain concept that took the league by storm — for a very short while — in 2008.

Put simply, if other teams want to stop the push from working, they should figure out a way to stop it on the field. Until then, the Eagles should continue to be rewarded for their ingenuity.