Anthony Barr Defends 'Tush Push' Amid Potential Ban: 'It's a Slippery Slope'

Anthony Barr doesn’t think the NFL should ban the “tush push.”

The former Minnesota Vikings linebacker, the presumed originator of the play, recently spoke out about the potential ban of the move.

“I think it's a slippery slope,” Barr, 33, reportedly told TMZ. “You ban one play and then what's next? So I think you just gotta find a way to stop it.”

The play, later made famous by the Philadelphia Eagles, is when a quarterback is pushed forward through the defensive line by players behind him, typically a running back and tight end, to gain short yardage or score near the goal line, as explained by CBS Sports.

According to ESPN, the “tush push” was a point of discussion during the NFL’s annual league meeting on Tuesday. 

Sources told the network that 16 teams supported a proposal from the Green Bay Packers to ban the controversial play. However, it ultimately lacked the 24 minimum votes needed for it to be passed per the league’s bylaws.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell cited potential "safety issues that are being considered" with the "tush push," despite limited data on it.

"It's beyond data. There's also the mechanism of injury that we study ... that leads us to show the risk involved with a particular play," he said, per ESPN. "There's a lot of discussion about going back to the previous rule [pre-2005]. ... The reality of that is, I think that makes a lot of sense in many ways because that expands it beyond just that single play. There are a lot of plays where you see someone pushing or pulling somebody that are not in the tush push formation that I think do have an increased risk of injury."

The committee is set to revisit the issue in May.