The Patriots are on the right side of history with their Tush Push vote

Of all of the rule change proposals for the NFL this offseason, the most contentious has been about the 'Tush Push.' The souped-up quarterback sneak started by and most associated with the Philadelphia Eagles was potentially on the chopping block, after the Green Bay Packers proposed a rule that would have eliminated the play by making it illegal for offensive players to "push or pull a runner in any direction at any time or lift him off his feet."

The proposal was originally supposed to be voted on at the Owners' Meetings back in early April but was tabled among uncertainty. Prior to Wednesday's vote at the Spring League Meetings, the Packers submitted an updated version of the proposal.

On Wednesday the proposal needed the votes of 24 of the league's 32 owners to pass. It came up just short with 22 votes, meaning the Tush Push will remain legal.

Among those 10 teams to vote 'no' were the New England Patriots. They joined the Eagles (of course), Ravens, Browns, Lions, Jaguars, Dolphins, Saints, Titans, and Jets.

The Patriots' and these other teams' votes shouldn't just be logged as 'no' votes on this topic. It should be noted that those 10 teams came down on the right side of history on this issue.

Banning the Tush Push never made sense for the reasons that were given by the play's opponents. In fact, many of the reasons cited for banning the play are nothing more than straw man arguments - with those making those arguments sometimes admitting as much.

Nothing about the play takes advantage of any previously-unseen loophole in the rules or is a 'gimmick.' It's simply the Eagles designing a play that they can run and take advantage of the strengths of their roster (in particular, a very powerful offensive line and a quarterback that can squat 600 pounds).

Need proof that the Tush Push is more than just some hole in the rules? If that was the case, wouldn't every team be able to run it at a high level? There are numerous examples of teams failing to execute the play - including the Eagles themselves with different personnel in a preseason game.

In their revised version of the proposal the Packers cited two reasons for wanting the play banned - player safety and pace of play. Neither reason holds up to scrutiny though.

Injuries have often been cited as an argument against the Tush Push. However not only does the play not have an elevated injury rate, it's among the safest plays in the game. Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reported in February that "the league’s internal data on the tush push revealed there was a 0% injury rate on what is known as the Tush Push."

As Patriots fans know all too well though, a lack of hard data won't stop the NFL from pushing the narrative it wants. During the Owners Meetings back in April before what was supposed to be the initial vote, NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported that "during the meetings, the NFL's medical experts emphasized to clubs that there is potential injury risk, even without substantial data to prove it at this time."

"We have very little data from it, but it's beyond data," Commissioner Roger Goodell said at the time. "There's also the mechanism of injury that we study, that type of thing that leads us to show the risk involved with a particular play or a particular tackle. So those are things that we did discuss."

If the NFL can produce actual evidence of the play being a player-safety issue, there's a real strong case for it to be banned. Player safety, of course, should be a top priority. Right now though they have not a lack of evidence, but evidence going directly against that concept.

The pace of play complaint is more subjective, but on the surface it's a play teams can quickly line up, run, and move on - much like a quarterback sneak. The only instance of a Tush Push slowing down a game was when Frankie Luvu repeatedly jumped offsides in the NFC Championship Game - something that seemed to entertain most of the fans watching and didn't feel like much of a drag.

The final argument often used against the Tush Push is that it's 'not a real football play.'

"There are definitely some people that have health and safety concerns, but there are definitely as many people that have football concerns," NFL Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said during the meetings in April. "It was much more about the play, the aesthetics of the play. Is it what football has been traditionally or is it more of a rugby play?”

McKay brought up the rugby comparison again in an NFL Network interview, saying "There were discussions of, 'Hey, this just doesn't feel like traditional play. This isn't what football was invented to be. This feels a little more rugby.'"

Saying something isn't a "traditional" football play because it's reminiscent of rugby is ignoring or outright being ignorant to the history of the sport. The 'Football History' page on the Pro Football Hall of Fame's website identifies the sport as having "its roots stemmed from two sports, soccer and rugby." That makes a rugby-like play as inherently 'traditional' as football gets.

If the real concern here is doing away with plays that aren't in the "traditional" spirit of the game, why not take a long look at the forward pass? Those were illegal for over 30 years after what is considered to be the first true game played in the sport, and even once it was initially legalized it was restricted heavily and didn't become a regular occurrence until rules were changed again 26 years after that.

This is not arguing to eliminate the forward pass. But, look at the timeline. The play that is being challenged as "not traditional" was in the game from the beginning, decades before the play that the modern game has embraced was made legal.

No, banning the Tush Push isn't about closing a loophole, or player safety, or the pace of play, or even trying to protect the original roots of the game itself. It's simply the league and a bunch of teams upset one team designed a play and built a roster to run that play that makes it incredibly hard to stop.

Hard, but not impossible. Teams should spend less time trying to shut the Tush Push down in the board room and more time doing so in the film room. The thing about the Tush Push is it's not something the Eagles can run 40 times a game. It's a very specific play for a very specific situation. Keeping Philly out of short-yardage situations is the best thing opponents can do.

Defensive coaches could also get in the lab and try to find new techniques of their own to counter this innovation. The Tush Push itself is a relatively new wrinkle, but this cycle is not. As long as the NFL has been around teams have come up with new strategies that dominate until coaches on the other side of the ball come up with counters (remember when the Wildcat was going to 'revolutionize the game' when the Miami Dolphins debuted it in 2008?).

Mike Vrabel may have said it best when he was asked about the play by Pro Football Talk ahead of the vote in April. "There's a lot of plays that you have to defend, whether that's quarterback sneaks, whether that's read zone - there's a lot of plays that are hard to defend, and I don't think that you can get rid of them every time that you have a tough time stopping it," he said. "I mean, Lamar Jackson shouldn't be able to run with the football anymore, how about making that rule? Like that's tough to defend."

That's all the Tush Push is - an offensive concept that is hard to defend. And now teams will have to keep trying to come up with ways to defend it on the field, thanks to the Patriots, Eagles, and other teams that prevented that actual X's and O's conversation from being settled off the field.