Nahshon Wright and Bears defense take away the hated tush push

Throughout the NFL, and maybe even in Green Bay, Nahshon Wright on Friday became America's darling.

He destroyed the tush push, and after all, that's what the Packers wanted to do last offseason.

It's only temporary, but wait until next offseason and the rest of the league will do permanently by a vote what Wright did to the Eagles in the Bears' 24-15 win over the Eagles.

Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said they had a plan for combatting the tush push and part of it was to avoid getting in those short-yardage situations. They weren't able to completely accomplish this but when they were facing it, backed up to their own 12 because Caleb Williams had thrown one of the worst screen passes in Bears history for an interception, Wright delivered by taking the football right out of the hands of Jalen Hurts mid-tush pushed.

"Once I kind of seen he was going, I saw him holding the ball out, I just was able to get in there and get my hands under it and just rip it," Wright told reporters afterward. "And from there it was Hurts get on the ball and secure it."

It wasn't quite so simple, but Wright had some making up to do. He had given up the 33-yard touchdown pass earlier in the third quarter when the Eagles went 92 yards to pull within 10-9, before a missed PAT by Jake Elliott. So the tush push with the Eagles already inside the red zone prevented a potential Philadelphia go-ahead score. They trailed from the first drive and never did catch the Bears.

The ball stripped, Wright did have to vie with linemen for a ball on the ground.

"It wasn't that bad," Wright said. "The O-lineman wasn't as strong as I thought he was."

One might say the Eagles, as a team, weren't either.

Hurts had only 57 yards passing until the 92-yard Eagles drive late in the third quarter to get within 10-9. He finished 19 of 34 for 230 yards but an interception to former Eagles safety Kevin Byard proved a problem for the Eagles. They also only ran for 87 yards on the Bears defense lacking its starting three linebackers and one of the subs. Saquon Barkley had 56 of the yards and Hurts had 31 when he wasn't fumbling tush pushes.

That makes the Bears 2-for-3 against the tush push, counting the Steelers stop and the long run they made off the play on a handoff.

"We certainly wanted to be sound in how we defended that (tush push) play and the complements off that play," Johnson said. "We were hopeful to have opportunities to get the ball, there."

The key besides two turnovers against a team that rarely made them was stopping 8-of-12 third downs as they rotated their new influx of cornerbacks around with Kyler Gordon and Jaylon Johnson back. The 4-of-12 Eagles effort on third downs was poor considering the Bears' offense managed to convert 10 of 17.

"Defensively, I thought our guys played their tails off for all 60 minutes," Johnson said. "We kind of harped on the importance of getting in these third-down situations and we created a number of those."

It will be interesting to see where the Bears go with their secondary when

Tyrique Stevenson is over a hip injury, whether Wright keeps starting or Stevenson gets his spot back. Wright leads the NFL in takeaways and is right behind Byard by one in interceptions with five.

It's also worth considering how much better they can be when even one of their starting linebackers return or, gasp, all of them do.

Combined with the ball-control offense, it could be something far beyond what anyone expected when this season began on the heels of a 5-12 disaster in 2024.

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