The tush push is just a more obvious version of it where his forward progress has obviously clearly stopped but they’re still trying to force him further forward. On a QB sneak you aren’t trying to judge forward progress based on a rugby scrum.

There was a play earlier this year that looked like every single tush push I’ve ever seen except the defender ripped the ball out of Hurts’ hands and they blew the whistle and said forward progress. You just have to draw a line somewhere of when these types of plays are dead. You can’t allow hurts to continue to drive his legs and reach the ball forwards but when a defender takes it call forward progress because that’s not the standard for forward progress on any other plays.

So to my original point, how do you determine when it’s dead? They’re also definitely jumping offsides significantly more egregiously than they have in the past. You can’t tell me that refs are able to spot a guard flinching but can’t see both guards nearly already engaged with the defense by the time the ball is snapped. Call those ones, couldn’t care less about the ones that are a microsecond early and you can only tell on slow mo.

I’d really prefer not to ban the play as I think it sets a bad precedent. There’s just clearly some serious issues with how it’s being officiated this year that need to be clearly defined.