The Commanders Finally Stopped The Brotherly Shove Forcing A Jalen Hurts Fumble At The Goal Line

One of the leading topics of conversation in the NFL this season has been about the Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback sneak, dubbed the Brotherly Shove/Tush Push, and whether the league should do anything about it.

The Eagles, of course, have been wildly successful with the play, running behind their terrific offensive line and taking advantage of Jalen Hurts’ power as a runner. Other teams haven’t had the same level of success with the shove push, and there have been some injuries on the play that figure to get looked at by the NFL. The Eagles and their fans, unsurprisingly, don’t want to see their nearly unstoppable play get outlawed, and have noted that if it were truly unfair then every team would have their same level of success with it and teams should just do a better job against it.

On Sunday, against the Washington Commanders, they finally got taken up on that challenge by the stout Washington defensive front, which stoned the QB sneak at the goal line, resulting in a fumble after Hurts ran the ball into the back of Jason Kelce and dropped it after his momentum was halted.

Part of what makes the play so hard to deal with on the goal line is, even if you stop it once, they’re going to get another crack at it if it’s just held up. However, in this case, Washington’s surge to keep Kelce from moving forward resulted in all kinds of things going wrong on the play for Philly, as the ball popped out as Hurts tried to push forward with it and the Commanders were able to get on it for a rare turnover on the play to briefly preserve a 7-point lead — the Eagles would get a game-tying touchdown via A.J. Brown on their next possession.