INDIANAPOLIS — It was late November, the Ravens were sitting at 7-4, facing fourth-and-1 from their own 16-yard line and trailing the Los Angeles Chargers 10-7 with two minutes remaining in the first half of a critical AFC showdown at SoFi Stadium. Football norms, along with analytics, said to punt. Instead, tight end Mark Andrews lined up under center and plowed ahead, aided by 6-foot-3, 247-pound running back Derrick Henry shoving “the [crap]” out of him from behind to help pick up a first down that led to an eventual touchdown and a lead that Baltimore never relinquished.

It was their own version of the Eagles’ “tush push” with quarterback Jalen Hurts, a play (along with perhaps the best offensive line in the NFL) that helped propel Philadelphia to a Super Bowl title this past season.

Over the past three years, the Eagles and Buffalo Bills have combined to run 163 tush push plays, according to ESPN research, which is more than the league’s other 30 teams combined. They were also highly successful, with the two teams combining for a first down or touchdown on 87% of them.

Earlier this week, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said that one team had issued a proposal to ban the play for the 2025 season, and Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst on Tuesday confirmed that it was Green Bay.

Unsurprisingly, Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who utilized Andrews in the same role on several occasions, is not in favor of eliminating the play from the game, however.

“You have to take all of those rules holistically,” he said this week at the NFL scouting combine. “What effect does one rule change have on the next thing? So, if you take out the ‘tush push,’ then you’re going to take out all pushing. A guy can’t be downfield, and the offensive linemen can’t come running in and push the ball carrier 5 more yards. You can’t take one out but not the other. They are the same, just like you’re not supposed to be able to grab a running back and pull him into the end zone. That hasn’t been officiated. They’ve allowed that to happen. That’s already against the rules. How are you going to officiate that?

“So, if we want to say that you can’t help push a [running] back, then you can take out the ‘tush push.’ If you’re going to say that’s still allowed, then, in my opinion, can’t take out the ‘tush push.’ So, I’m good with it. I’m OK with the ‘tush push,’ yes.”

Not everyone feels the same, most notably the Packers, who lost to the Eagles in Week 1 then again in the wild-card round of the playoffs last season.

After the latter, Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy called the play “bad for the game” on the team’s website and wrote that there is “no skill” involved in it.

This week, Gutekunst downplayed it somewhat.

“I know we’re not very successful against it,” he said. “I know that. But to be honest, I have not put much thought into it. It’s been around for a while. We’ve used it in different fashions with our tight end, so, again, I think there will be a lot of discussions about it. I’ve kind of got to look at the, some of the information as far as injury rates, things like that to see. But we’ll see.”

Atlanta Falcons coach Raheem Morris was more firm, though, saying this week that he thinks it should be banned.

“I’ve never been a fan,” Morris said. “Never understood why it was allowed. I definitely will be one of the guys voting against it.”

On Wednesday, though, the proposal likely suffered a big blow: The league announced that its data showed there had been zero injuries suffered during the play, unlike the hip-drop tackle, which was outlawed during last offseason.

Injury was at the forefront of Bills coach Sean McDermott’s perhaps surprising thoughts on the play, which he said he does not like, though he stopped short of saying it should be done away with.

“The way that the techniques that are used with the play, to me, have been potentially contrary to the health and safety of the players,” McDermott said on Monday. “You have to go back through, in fairness, to the injury data on the play, but I just think the optics of it I’m not in love with.”

Though the Bills have been highly successful with quarterback Josh Allen running the play, that was not the case in this season’s AFC championship game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

All four times Allen attempted it against Kansas City he was stopped. That included on fourth-and-1 early in the fourth quarter of what ended up being a 32-29 Buffalo loss.

“I understand how it can go both ways,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “I think it takes certain players to be able to do that, and that’s not an easy thing for the center.

“Now there are other things you have to look at. You got to look at the injuries that take place, or, you know, whatever the other deals are that they evaluate on it. So I don’t have all that information, but, I mean, it’s a heck of a play, I know that.”

Eagles coach Nick Siranni, meanwhile, called support to outlaw it “insulting.”

“We work really, really hard and our guys are talented at this play,” he said. “We work really hard at it and you see it throughout the league. I mean we saw it in the championship games that a team failed at it and ultimately didn’t end up winning the game because of it.

“It’s a skill that our team has because of the players that we have, the, the way the coaches coach it again there’s just so much time put into it. The fact that it’s a successful play for the Eagles and people want to take that away, I think is a little unfair.”

Former Pittsburgh Steeler and current ESPN NFL analyst Ryan Clark took a similar stance.

“How soft do you have to be? Oh we can’t stop it, our defensive tackles are tough enough our linebackers get hurt,” he said on the network this week. “Bow your neck. Somebody get physical and stop the play.

“It’s like everything in else in sports, if you don’t have the personnel to do it, you don’t do it.”

That has been a popular sentiment among several coaches and general managers.

“When a team gets something they’re good at, you gotta learn how to stop it,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles said. “I don’t think the first thing you do is take it out of the ball game.”

Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1.