Eagles Nick Sirianni Defends A Play That Has Sparked Plenty Of Debate

The NFL world is in an uproar. Nobody wants to talk about the resilience, the grit, and the doggedness that it took for the Eagles to beat the Kansas City Chiefs 20-17 in their very backyard in their home opener to leave them 0-2, and doing it in 90-degree heat.

All anyone wants to talk about is the Brotherly Shove, or tush push if you prefer. They seem to think that without it, the Eagles would lose every game, rather than the ridiculous streak they are on, winning 18 of their last 19 games, including the playoffs. They have won eight in a row. To hear the whiners talk, they would be 0-8 in those games without the tush push.

NFL mouthpiece Adam Schefter said the Chiefs lost the game in March when the league chose not to ban the play. Not on Sunday. Not to the Eagles, giving them no credit whatsoever.

Nick Sirianni Not Backing Away From Signature Play

"This game was lost in March. This game was lost when the NFL owners refused to ban the tush push from happening. It wasn't lost yesterday."

—@AdamSchefter on Eagles-Chiefs pic.twitter.com/rl60G5Pa6n
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) September 15, 2025

So, of course, Nick Sirianni was asked about the play he made famous, or infamous depending on your point of view, during his Monday videoconference.

“Obviously, there's been a lot of discussion about it, and I think when you bring more discussion about a play, it brings more attention to football” he said. “I think it's kind of a cool thing obviously that how much people debate it, how much people discuss it.”

It’s been a one-sided debate.

Former VP of NFL officiating Dean Blandino said on the Fox telecast of Eagles-Chiefs, “I am done with the tush push, guys. It’s a hard play to officiate.”

Tom Brady, who was denied a Super Bowl ring in a loss to the Eagles in Super Bowl LII, saw what he thought was a false start on the play, and took his shot, saying, “The 'Brotherly Shove' is awfully impossible to stop. When you get a false start penalty like that, it's even harder to stop. They missed that one pretty bad.”

Brady saw a slo-mo replay, a clip that was sent to Sirianni.

“It was slowed down so much that I'm not sure you can see that to the naked eye,” he said. “I mean, it was slowed down so much, and I get how we can manipulate things and show things like that. Well, there's things they do too on defense that sometimes you can't see to the naked eye all the time, or the refs can't see it also in that time to the naked eye. You could do that with a lot of plays on football and slow it down.”

He said pass interference is the same way, that it can be difficult to officiate at real speed, but then slowed on replay it becomes obvious that a foul happened or didn’t.

Either way, it is a difficult play to officiate. And it works both ways, with the defense lining up offsides sometimes and the Eagles in the neutral zone or false-starting. At least, the injury excuse isn’t being dragged out, because there hasn’t been any.

Sirianni defend the play, saying that the league took space away on kickoffs for safety reasons, and with the Brotherly Shove, there is no space. So, no injuries.

The coach isn’t going to dial back usage of the play and talked about performing it cleaner.

“I think it brings good attention to the game and obviously I'm biased towards it,” he said, “and we will just keep working to get better at it.”

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