Why the Tush Push is in trouble, and a deeper look at the other big news from the NFL owners meetings

∗ Moving the touchback to the 35, where it should have been last year. The NFL was mostly thrilled with the results of the Dynamic Kickoff, which increased returns, return average, and return touchdowns, while significantly decreasing the injury rate.

But you could practically hear the special teams coaches and NFL competition committee telling the owners, “We told you fools last year the touchback should be at the 35. Now let’s get it right.”

The league’s data last year recommended the touchback come out to the 35 to deter kickers from blasting the ball out of the end zone, but the owners moved it to the 30 because the 35 was too drastic a change for many.

Sure enough, while kickoff returns increased from 22 percent to 33 percent last year, the touchback rate of 64 percent was still too high for the NFL’s liking (second highest in history). The average start line after a kickoff was the 27.6 yard line, and that 2.4-yard difference from a touchback wasn’t enough of a deterrent for kickers.

Now that the touchback will come out to the 35, that 7.4-yard difference in starting field position likely will encourage kickers to keep the ball in play, as will the fact that only 16 percent of returns last year went past the 35. Broncos special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi, one of the central figures in developing the Dynamic Kickoff, said he expects returns to jump to 70 percent or higher in 2025.

“When I was growing up, the touchback rate was maybe 15-25 percent, and we feel like that’s going to be the case again,” Rizzi said.

* No changes to onside kick — for now. The NFL also was considering two tweaks to the onside kick rules, but the owners tabled everything until May. The proposed changes had been to allow teams to attempt an onside kick at any point in the game as long as they are trailing (instead of only the fourth quarter), and to allow players on the kicking team to align 1 yard closer to improve their chances of recovering the ball.

The onside kick definitely needs to be revived — the recovery rate of 5 percent the last three years is but a fraction of the 15-25 percent recovery rate the NFL used to consistently see in the previous 20 years — and in December NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent called it a “dead” play. It was surprising not to see more extensive rule proposals for the onside kick, and even more surprising the owners didn’t even consider the rules last week. But it will be discussed more at the next meeting.

“We’ll work with some coaches and add some other tweaks they’d like to talk about on the onside, and we’ll bring that up to a vote in May,” said Rich McKay, chairman of the NFL competition committee.

* Tush Push is on life support. The big news of the week was that the owners were split, 16-16, on banning the Tush Push, and will now consider in May banning all push plays, not just the Eagles’ short-yardage QB sneak.

Usually when an item doesn’t get 24 votes to pass, the league simply moves on. The fact that they tabled the discussion and will discuss it again is a clear sign Roger Goodell and the league office want the Tush Push and all push plays out of the game. The league doesn’t have any injury data, but views push plays as unsafe and a disaster waiting to happen.

* New technology for measuring first downs — but humans are still in charge. The NFL is taking a step into the future with the implementation of its Hawk-Eye technology as the primary method for measuring first downs. The NFL still will use the traditional chain crews as a reference point for TV viewers, but expects Hawk-Eye to save about 40 seconds per measurement.

Still, it’s important for everyone to understand: Hawk-Eye will determine if the spot is a first down, but the officials are the ones who determine when forward progress has stopped, and where the ball will be spotted. It won’t fix the main controversy from the AFC Championship game when Josh Allen’s sneak was ruled short of the marker.

* Overtime is now a race against the clock. The Eagles proposed guaranteeing both teams a possession in overtime, and increasing the game clock back to 15 minutes. The owners split the difference by approving the possession part, but keeping the clock at 10 minutes.

And it’s a hard 10 minutes. If the first team takes up the entire period and kicks a field goal with 0:00 left on the clock, the second team doesn’t get a possession and loses the game.

The average scoring drive lasts about five minutes, so both teams should get a possession. But if the first team chews up a lot of clock, the second team needs to move the ball in a hurry.

“If you go to 15 [minutes], then you go back to whoever wins the coin toss is going to defer,” McKay said. “If you win the coin toss now, 10 minutes, you’re taking the ball, because of how much time will be left. It adds an element of competitiveness. We just felt that was a better way to do it.”

* Playoff seeding will be considered, but probably not changed. The Lions proposed seeding every team in the conference by record, instead of the current system, where the four division winners get the top four seeds and are guaranteed a home playoff game.

McKay said there was “some” support for the proposal, and they will discuss it again, but it doesn’t sound as if it has enough to get 24 votes.

“The idea is, well, are you diminishing division championships? Which we do not want to do,” McKay said. “It has served us very well is divisions, and that rivalry and that fact that it means something that we’re not just sitting all in a conference being ranked.”

With it looking increasingly likely the NFL is going to ban all push plays in May, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni provided an interesting history of the Tush Push this past week at the owners meetings.

Like many innovations, the play was created out of necessity when Sirianni was the offensive coordinator in Indianapolis under former coach Frank Reich.

“We had a lot of success with it in Indy, with Jacoby Brissett, particularly,” Sirianni said. “He would come in for Andrew Luck to do some of those with Andrew coming off an injury. And then [Brissett] did it when he started in 2019, and then in 2020 when we had Philip Rivers, he was the specialist in that as well.”

Brissett went 10 for 10 on short yardage sneaks in 2019, and rushed 17 times for 19 yards in 2020, with three touchdowns, and nine more first downs. Sirianni became the Eagles’ head coach in 2021, and started getting creative with the sneaks.

“In 2021 we didn’t run it a lot, I think we were 13 of 14, but one of those in that time we motioned Dallas Goedert into the backfield and gave [the quarterback] a little extra help,” Sirianni said. “That led us into 2022 where we played Detroit, and we ended the game with a quarterback sneak. Wasn’t anybody pushing, but we ended the game on a fourth and 1, we were up, 38-35, with a quarterback sneak to be able to kneel it out. That was a pretty important quarterback sneak to happen — ‘Let’s make sure we get them.’ It kind of evolved from there — different formations, different pushers. Then we turned it into two pushers. It was a cool evolution.”

Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn, the daughter of owner Mike Brown and granddaughter of Paul Brown, does not mess around. A former Dartmouth ice hockey player and attorney, Blackburn flexed her muscles on a couple of significant issues last week.

The first came in regard to star pass rusher Trey Hendrickson, who wants a raise from $16 million in 2025. Hendrickson’s 43 sacks the last three years are second-most in the NFL behind Myles Garrett’s 44, yet Hendrickson makes less than half of Garrett’s $40 million annual salary. Hendrickson also watched the Bengals splurge on receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins recently.

Blackburn basically told Hendrickson to zip it and appreciate what he has.

“I think he should be happy at certain rates that maybe he doesn’t think he’d be happy at,” Blackburn said, per the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I think some of it is on him to be happy at some point, and if he’s not, you know, that’s what holds it up sometimes. So, you know, it takes him to say yes to something.”

Hendrickson has been running hot and cold with the Bengals all offseason — first he wants a trade, then he doesn’t, now he’s unhappy again. Following Blackburn’s comments, Hendrickson told the “Pat McAfee Show” that “communication has been poor over the last couple of months. … It’s been something that’s been a little bit frustrating.”

It sounds as if Hendrickson doesn’t really want to leave Cincinnati, and the Bengals know it, so they’re not budging on a new contract. If Hendrickson wants to get paid close to market rate, he needs to make a bigger nuisance of himself to get traded, because it’s probably not going to happen in Cincinnati.

But that wasn’t the only bomb dropped by Blackburn. She casually threatened to move the team from Cincinnati if the team and Hamilton County, Ohio can’t agree to a deal to renovate Paycor Stadium. The Bengals’ lease expires June 30, 2026, and they have until this June 30 to extend the lease two years.

“We could, I guess, go wherever we wanted after this year if we didn’t pick the option up,” Blackburn said. “Our stadium obviously needs to continue to be maintained appropriately, and you want to keep it at a certain level that’s important, just so that we’re competitive with others.”

It’s possible Blackburn was just referring to moving the Bengals from downtown to the suburbs. But her phrasing came across as a threat to the county to pony up for stadium renovations — or else.

It’s not surprising Tom Brady hired a 70-something head coach in Las Vegas. The shocker was that the coach wasn’t Bill Belichick, but instead it was Pete Carroll, the coach whom Brady famously defeated in Super Bowl 49.

Brady and Carroll didn’t have much of a relationship before the interview process. I asked Carroll at the owners meetings if he ever in his wildest dreams thought he would one day team up with Brady.

“I never did think that could happen. I couldn’t even see the path to that,” said Carroll, 73. “And then when he jumps into the Raiders, the entire image of this opportunity shifted.”

“The expertise that he brings, the uniqueness, I didn’t know how he would be to work with. Just competed against him, listened to him over the years, have great admiration and respect and all that,” Carroll said. “But he is really grounded in his mentality. That’s what makes him so valuable to us, because we can draw from that.”

“There have been a number of opportunities already to position him to speak on behalf of a unique perspective that like nobody else has. About a ton of things, but particularly about the quarterback position, and offense, and I translate his thoughts from the offensive side to what’s going on on the other side of the ball.”

“And it’s been tremendous. It’s going to continue to be. I never would ever have imagined something like that happening.”

Does their history on the field ever come up?

“It isn’t just about the Super Bowl — we’ve played them a number of times, and beat him,” Carroll said with a smile.

Carroll went 2-1 against Brady in the regular season, defeating the Patriots in 2012 and 2016 and losing to the Bucs in 2022. Brady won the biggest one, however.

The NFL made an interesting decision last week to formally acknowledge the stats from the All-America Football Conference, which lasted from 1946-49 and introduced the 49ers, Colts, and Browns franchises. This decision cost the Ravens a spot in the record book, as the 1948 Niners are now the official record-holders for most rushing yards in a season (3,663) and rushing average (6.1 yards per attempt). Those records were held by the 2019 Ravens (3,296 yards) and 2024 Ravens (5.76 yards per carry). Paul Brown is also officially recognized as a seven-time championship winner, putting him one ahead of Bill Belichick and George Halas … Steelers owner Art Rooney lamented that he “didn’t envision it taking this long” for the team to sign Aaron Rodgers. Hello, this is what Rodgers does, drawing things out for maximum attention … The NFL expects a decision soon on whether active players will be able to participate in flag football at the 2028 Olympics. The injury risk is a major concern, but considering how serious the NFL takes its flag football initiatives, here’s betting that star players will be allowed to participate … The Falcons are still open to trading quarterback Kirk Cousins. “If it’s something that’s good for both of us … we certainly would like to see that happen,” coach Raheem Morris said. But they owe Cousins $27 million this year and $10 million next year, and don’t seem to want to do what the Broncos did last year with Russell Wilson, cutting him a check for $38 million and sending him on his way. The Browns make the most sense for Cousins, but probably want the Falcons to pick up most, if not all, of the tab … It has been surprising to learn this offseason that Myles Garrett has bad practice habits, and Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said the team has “challenged” Garrett “to become a real leader of the team. And he said he’d do that, and we’re hopeful that he will be.” Of course, the Browns just paid Garrett a record-setting contract for $40 million per year, so good luck convincing Garrett that his way doesn’t work.

---

Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com.