American Football appears to be regaining some of its rugby roots, seemingly reintroducing something like the mass plays of the 1900s. If Americans are to do something of course they need a catchy name for it – the “Tush Push”, or “Brotherly Shove” for the Eagles version of it. It’s when the offensive line pushes part of the defensive line back, the quarterback follows, and other players come in behind the quarterback pushing, and the whole mass pushes forward and collapses for a 1-3 yard gain. I find it beautiful to watch – the best play since American football deviated from rugby.
Here’s a video news piece describing it.
Here’s a video analysing it.
Here’s an written article about it.
The reason I raise this is to start a discussion. We pack scrums, and then they often fall down, and need to start again. In the brotherly shove, the players start unbound, then come into contact after the play starts, and largely remain unbound. I presume we pack scrums in an effort to reduce injuries, reducing the hit, but I’m not aware of this American football play being a major cause of injuries, and scrums collapsing is a significant cause of injuries.
It is possible to start scrums without pre-binding. In the early days of rugby scrums were not pre-bound. After a tackle was effected, the tackled player called “down” and play stopped for a short time while the tackled player put the ball on the ground. As soon as the ball was down, play immediately began with players “closing in” as the rules termed it, and began pushing, shoving, and kicking at the ball.
The rugby scrum evolved away from its early form due to teams pre-binding within their own team to get the advantage in the initial push, which I presume caused problems for the player putting the ball down, and so the response was to have both teams pre-bind together and feed the scrum from the side rather than the middle. There was a wide range of possible responses to this situation. For example banning pre-binding, or all binding, and/or letting the play begin when someone kicked it instead of it hitting the ground. It’s the different response the American game took that resulted in the split between the two sports. In rugby league, they realised they weren’t pushing in scrums, and so they went back to the tackled player putting the ball down for post tackle scrums (named “play the balls”) to distinguish them from pre-bound scrums, which they retained for other purposes.
Mauls form without any pre-binding. Binding still occurs, but it happens dynamically as play is going on. It’s surely possible for scrums to form in a similar way. The difference would be that the ball must be on the ground, not held, and can only be played by kicking it.
Alternatively, imagine that the scrum starts with the ball on the ground between the forward packs, who are not bound, and perhaps only allowed to be arranged in two rows. Then the side with the “put in” just starts when they want, to which the defending side can respond in kind, and something like a “brotherly shove” struggle ensues over the ball. Forwards would not be allowed to play the ball with their hands until it comes out, but they could kick it. Some would assume that there would be all sorts of injuries, but that doesn’t appear to be the experience.
Do players need helmets for this to work? It would require a radical change to front row technique, but still broadly similar players would be required, and they’d be doing roughly similar things in pushing their opponents back. What are the views on this? No need to hold back – I’ve got my Devo energy dome on. Don’t worry about my mental state.
