The Green Bay Packers' proposal to ban the push sneak, popularly known as the tush push, has support within the competition committee, a source with direct knowledge told Kalyn Kahler of ESPN on Sunday.

Another source with direct knowledge of competition committee thinking said the proposal would be "hotly contested" among the coaches, general managers and owners as they gather for league meetings this week.

The league office staff presented the rules proposals during the football operations meeting Sunday afternoon, and two sources in the meeting described the back and forth as "heated" regarding the proposal to "prohibit an offensive player from pushing a teammate who was lined up directly behind the snapper and receives the snap, immediately at the snap."

During the Sunday afternoon session, Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman, assistant general manager Jon Ferrari and two head coaches on the competition committee, Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams and Sean McDermott of the Buffalo Bills, gathered in a hallway outside of the ballroom to have a private and animated side conversation about the Packers' proposal.

Packers head coach Matt LaFleur has not spoken publicly about the team's proposal, and declined to comment on it when approached by ESPN on Sunday afternoon. Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst also declined a question from ESPN on Sunday. "I'll leave that for someone else to talk about," he said.

Teams putting forth a proposal will often save their argument for the day of voting, which in this case, will be Tuesday morning.

Green Bay listed two reasons within its proposal to prohibit the play the Eagles have made famous: player safety and pace of play. Multiple sources that have been in competition committee meetings about the play told ESPN there was no injury data to support the ban, rather a hypothetical conversation centered on potential injuries.

The league presented the injury risk of the push sneak based on data modeling, saying defensive players are at risk launching head-first, and offensive linemen at risk because of their bent posture operating in a narrow window, which could lead to neck injuries.

"It's not backed by data," one club executive said. "It was all subjective."

Another source in the competition committee meetings said that "it's not about player safety. It's just a different play and it just looks different."

The tush push has had critics around the league since the Eagles debuted the play during the 2022 season. Coaches and executives and players have argued it's not a football play, with some comparing it to a rugby play.

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