Andy Reid, Tom Brady call out missed false start on tush push late in Eagles' win over Chiefs
The Philadelphia Eagles got the best of the Kansas City Chiefs again on Sunday afternoon in their Super Bowl rematch. The Eagles, however, at least appeared to get away with a couple of early starts on some critical tush pushes late in the matchup.
While it wasn’t the reason they lost by any means — the Eagles held on late to grab a 20-17 win at Arrowhead Stadium, which kept them undefeated and dropped the Chiefs to 0-2 on the season — it certainly drew plenty of attention. Even Chiefs head coach Andy Reid brought it up after the game.
“You try to get penetration, is what you try to do, to be able to stop [the tush push],” Reid said. “They might’ve had a couple of ‘em that they got off early on, but we’ll look at that.”
There was at least one replay from the contest that clearly showed a pair of Eagles linemen moving before the snap on a tush push from the game, as pointed out by Fox analyst Tom Brady on the broadcast.
Refs miss a false start on the Eagles on this tush push touchdown pic.twitter.com/3WbK8gkb5X
— Rate the Refs (@Rate_the_Refs) September 14, 2025
"The 'Brotherly Shove' is awfully impossible to stop," Brady said on the broadcast. "When you get a false start penalty like that, it's even harder to stop. They missed that one pretty bad."
There’s no doubt that the two linemen moved before the ball was snapped, which likely gave the Eagles a slight advantage in the trenches as they attempted to gain the last few inches needed for a touchdown. A replay from a different angle made that clear.
And people complain that the refs are on Chiefs side? pic.twitter.com/U1AqVSBZK1
— Chase Daniel (@ChaseDaniel) September 14, 2025
That touchdown Jalen Hurts run gave the Eagles a 10-point lead late in the fourth quarter.
The Eagles used a tush push to seal the game in the final minutes, too. They needed a yard to extend their drive and eventually get into a position to kneel out the rest of the clock. Chiefs in the pile were confident they had actually forced and recovered a fumble.
A review determined that they didn’t, but Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino didn’t hesitate to rip the play in the process.
"I am done with the tush push, guys. It's a hard play to officiate." - Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino, after the Eagles secure a win over the Chiefs pic.twitter.com/xIZrB5gaLe
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 14, 2025
“You can’t get all the calls right," Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones said, via KMBC. "Just because we see it, sometimes the official is 15 to 20 feet away and sometimes they can miss those small things. We think he jumped multiple times. The official didn’t see it, so it wasn’t called. We just have to go play the next down.”
Though the Eagles don’t own the rights to the tush push, they clearly are more effective at it than everybody else in the league. It’s a very difficult play to stop as it is, which makes it easy to understand why NFL team owners came close to banning it from the game this past summer.
Clearly, teams are still not happy with the play the Eagles have made popular in recent years. With how Sunday afternoon went in Kansas City, and how the Eagles are sure to keep using it throughout the campaign, it’d be a safe bet that a tush push ban gets brought up again next offseason.