EAGAN, Minn. — Roger Goodell may be NFL commissioner. But as was proven again on Wednesday, Goodell is not the boss, but an employee of the 32 team owners.
Goodell and the NFL office wanted the controversial “Tush Push” banned for the 2025 season. They also wanted owners to consider a major change to the playoff formula, taking an automatic home game away from division winners.
But the owners gave Goodell two big “L’s” at the owners’ spring meetings. The rule banning all push plays, proposed by the Packers, failed by a 22-10 vote by the owners, with 24 needed to pass. The rule changing the playoff seeding, proposed by the Lions, had so little support that the Lions withdrew it before putting it to a vote.
Goodell and NFL officials did their best to hide their disappointment that the Tush Push will remain a legal play after coming up just two votes short.
“It’s not disappointing for me, for our committee, for the committees that did the work because it takes 24 votes to pass anything,” said Rich McKay, chairman of the competition committee. “This is not a majority vote. Twenty-four [votes] is a high bar, and it should be.”
The Eagles, meanwhile, couldn’t stop celebrating. They tweeted the message “Push on” when the vote failed, then tweeted seven more times about the Tush Push. The Eagles invented the Tush Push as a short-yardage quarterback sneak and are the only team that runs the play consistently.
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie declined comment and scurried off after the meeting ended. But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who voted for banning the Tush Push, said he enjoyed the spirited debate, even if he didn’t get his desired result. The Patriots reportedly were one of 10 teams to vote against banning the Tush Push.
“I thought the league’s presentation was excellent, and I thought Philadelphia’s was excellent, too, very entertaining,” Jones said. “Nine clubs can keep you from turning the lights on. That’s what we do in the NFL, and that’s the power of the minority vote in the NFL.”
When the Packers’ initial proposal to ban the Tush Push failed by a 16-16 vote in April, Goodell and the league office didn’t drop the issue. Instead, they encouraged the Packers to broaden the proposal to ban all push plays, as had been the NFL rule until 2005.
Banning all push plays was unanimously approved by the competition committee, the NFL’s medical committee, and the Players Association’s medical committee. While there are no documented injuries from the Tush Push, NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills warned the owners in March that the Tush Push is a potential disaster in waiting.
But Goodell needed to swing eight votes, yet was only able to change six. In a closed-door meeting of owners and team and league executives, Lurie made a passionate presentation about the Tush Push and the lack of injury data, and was joined by former Eagles center Jason Kelce, who came here just to lobby to keep the Tush Push in the game.
Even after kicking everyone out of the room except for two owners for each team, Goodell could only get the vote to 22-10, forcing him to drop the issue for the year.
The problem for Goodell was that for many owners, banning all push plays was just a back door to Goodell’s desired result of banning the Tush Push. Ten owners didn’t feel comfortable changing a rule that was akin to only punishing the Eagles.
“Here we are debating it and having to decide, ‘Well, am I really against the Tush Push, or just don’t want Philadelphia to have an edge?’ ” Jones said. “And I sit there and fight that, too. I don’t know, I flip-flop.”
McKay said that even though pushing plays will remain legal, the NFL will have a point of emphasis in 2025 to try to eliminate the downfield pushing plays that occur when a runner is fighting against several tacklers.
“When there’s a downfield scrum, we want the whistle blown, we want the play shut down as opposed to everybody grabbing each other and pulling each other forward,” McKay said.
As for playoff seeding, Lions president Rod Wood said in March that Troy Vincent and the league office had asked the team to submit the proposal. The proposed system would have eliminated automatic home playoff games for division winners, and instead ranked teams based on record. The proposal came in response to the end of the 2024 season, when the 14-3 Vikings finished with the No. 5 seed behind two teams with worse records because they finished second in the NFC North.
But owners have long prized division titles and weren’t in the mood to change the system despite a healthy discussion.
“Certainly sympathetic to what they were trying to correct — no right or wrong there,” Jones said of the Lions. But, “I think the status quo held a real lead coming out of the gate.”
The only rule that did pass Wednesday were two modifications to the onside kick. Teams can now declare for one at any point of the game, instead of just the fourth quarter. And the kicking team will be moved up a yard to help increase the recovery rate, which has been 5-6 percent the last two years.
But the two proposals that Goodell cared the most about were swatted down by the owners. Wednesday’s votes were a direct repudiation of Goodell and the league office, and a reminder of who really runs the NFL.
Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com.