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No ifs, and or buts. The “tush push” lives to see another season.

NFL owners voted to continue the use controversial play at league meetings Wednesday despite a large majority of owners supporting the ban, which was put forward by the Green Bay Packers at annual winter meeting and modified this month.

Owners voted 22-10 to support the ban, ESPN reported, citing sources, but the proposal needed 24 votes to pass.

ESPN reported that the 10 teams to vote against the proposal were the Baltimore Ravens, the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Lions, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Miami Dolphins, the New England Patriots, the New Orleans Saints, the New York Jets, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Tennessee Titans.

Philadelphia Eagles’ owner Jeffrey Lurie made an almost hour-long speech in support of the play — a recent Eagles’ goal-line staple — at the meetings, ESPN reported, after hearing reports that both the NFL’s competition committee and the health and safety committee had voted in favor of banning the play.

Committee votes are generally supported by ownership.

The ‘tush push’ is exactly what it sounds like

The play is rather straightforward. The quarterback lines up behind the center, takes the snap, and runs straight ahead while being propelled from behind by the rest of the offense backfield.

Quarterbacks have run before, but seldom like this. With quarterback Jalen Hurts, the Eagles have pushed the play into the mainstream for the first time.

The Super Bowl champion Eagles have run a quarterback sneak 108 times since 2022, almost double the amount of the second-place Bills (55), according to ESPN research. They have used tush push to score 27 touchdowns in the last three seasons. Buffalo (11) with quarterback Josh Allen is the only other team with more than three scores.

Buffalo was among those who voted to ban the play.

The Eagles and Packers will meet on Monday Night Football on Nov. 10 at Lambeau Field.

Eagles’ owner Lurie makes a colorful point

During his speech at the meeting, Lurie used an analogy for which he was later chastised by NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent.

Lurie, according to ESPN, told owners that just having a vote was a “win-win” for the Eagles, saying that it was “like a wet dream for a teenage boy” to have a play that was so successful that the only way to stop it was to ban it. There were women present in the room.

Lurie also said that those who voted to ban the play who put more quarterbacks at risk, according to ESPN. He also criticized NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Vincent for supporting the ban.

The league considered the a stricter version of proposal at the annual league meeting last month but tabled it.

Green Bay resubmitted its proposal after revising the wording to ban all plays that involved pushing or pulling a ball carrier. The new language stipulated that “offensive players cannot assist the runner except by individually blocking opponents for him.” The verbiage “immediately at the snap” was removed.

But the owners gave Goodell two big “L’s” at the owners’ spring meetings. The rule banning all push plays, proposed by the Packers, failed by a 22-10 vote by the owners, with 24 needed to pass. The rule changing the playoff seeding, proposed by the Lions, had so little support that the Lions withdrew it before putting it to a vote.

Goodell and the NFL office wanted the controversial “Tush Push” banned for the 2025 season. They also wanted owners to consider a major change to the playoff formula, taking an automatic home game away from division winners.

EAGAN, Minn. — Roger Goodell may be NFL commissioner. But as was proven again on Wednesday, Goodell is not the boss, but an employee of the 32 team owners.

Goodell and NFL officials did their best to hide their disappointment that the Tush Push will remain a legal play after coming up just two votes short.

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“It’s not disappointing for me, for our committee, for the committees that did the work because it takes 24 votes to pass anything,” said Rich McKay, chairman of the competition committee. “This is not a majority vote. Twenty-four [votes] is a high bar, and it should be.”

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The Eagles, meanwhile, couldn’t stop celebrating. They tweeted the message “Push on” when the vote failed, then tweeted seven more times about the Tush Push. The Eagles invented the Tush Push as a short-yardage quarterback sneak and are the only team that runs the play consistently.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie declined comment and scurried off after the meeting ended. But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who voted for banning the Tush Push, said he enjoyed the spirited debate, even if he didn’t get his desired result. The Patriots reportedly were one of 10 teams to vote against banning the Tush Push.

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“I thought the league’s presentation was excellent, and I thought Philadelphia’s was excellent, too, very entertaining,” Jones said. “Nine clubs can keep you from turning the lights on. That’s what we do in the NFL, and that’s the power of the minority vote in the NFL.”

When the Packers’ initial proposal to ban the Tush Push failed by a 16-16 vote in April, Goodell and the league office didn’t drop the issue. Instead, they encouraged the Packers to broaden the proposal to ban all push plays, as had been the NFL rule until 2005.

Banning all push plays was unanimously approved by the competition committee, the NFL’s medical committee, and the Players Association’s medical committee. While there are no documented injuries from the Tush Push, NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills warned the owners in March that the Tush Push is a potential disaster in waiting.

But Goodell needed to swing eight votes, yet was only able to change six. In a closed-door meeting of owners and team and league executives, Lurie made a passionate presentation about the Tush Push and the lack of injury data, and was joined by former Eagles center Jason Kelce, who came here just to lobby to keep the Tush Push in the game.

Even after kicking everyone out of the room except for two owners for each team, Goodell could only get the vote to 22-10, forcing him to drop the issue for the year.

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The problem for Goodell was that for many owners, banning all push plays was just a back door to Goodell’s desired result of banning the Tush Push. Ten owners didn’t feel comfortable changing a rule that was akin to only punishing the Eagles.

“Here we are debating it and having to decide, ‘Well, am I really against the Tush Push, or just don’t want Philadelphia to have an edge?’ ” Jones said. “And I sit there and fight that, too. I don’t know, I flip-flop.”

McKay said that even though pushing plays will remain legal, the NFL will have a point of emphasis in 2025 to try to eliminate the downfield pushing plays that occur when a runner is fighting against several tacklers.

“When there’s a downfield scrum, we want the whistle blown, we want the play shut down as opposed to everybody grabbing each other and pulling each other forward,” McKay said.

As for playoff seeding, Lions president Rod Wood said in March that Troy Vincent and the league office had asked the team to submit the proposal. The proposed system would have eliminated automatic home playoff games for division winners, and instead ranked teams based on record. The proposal came in response to the end of the 2024 season, when the 14-3 Vikings finished with the No. 5 seed behind two teams with worse records because they finished second in the NFC North.

But owners have long prized division titles and weren’t in the mood to change the system despite a healthy discussion.

“Certainly sympathetic to what they were trying to correct — no right or wrong there,” Jones said of the Lions. But, “I think the status quo held a real lead coming out of the gate.”

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The only rule that did pass Wednesday were two modifications to the onside kick. Teams can now declare for one at any point of the game, instead of just the fourth quarter. And the kicking team will be moved up a yard to help increase the recovery rate, which has been 5-6 percent the last two years.

But the two proposals that Goodell cared the most about were swatted down by the owners. Wednesday’s votes were a direct repudiation of Goodell and the league office, and a reminder of who really runs the NFL.

Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie reportedly made a crude sexual analogy when discussing the ‘tush push’ on Wednesday at a fiery league meeting.

Lurie spoke for nearly an hour at a session that included NFL owners and team and league executives, as he argued against banning the short-yardage play which has become a staple for the Eagles (the vote to ban the play was ultimately unsuccessful).

And according to ESPN’s Seth Wickersham, Lurie at one point said it was ‘like a wet dream for a teenage boy’ to create the play.

In Wickersham’s paraphrasing of the incident, Lurie reportedly boasted that the ‘play that was so successful that the only way for it to be stopped was for it to be banned.’

Lurie was later scolded by NFL Executive Vice President of football operations Troy Vincent, who noted there were women in the meeting.

49ers owner Jed York reportedly had some pointed words for Lurie as well, asking him ‘how much more s***’ he needed to say amid his lengthy speech.

Jeffrey Lurie, seen on Wednesday, reportedly made a crude sexual remark in a meeting

The popular ‘tush push’ – used mainly by the Eagles – was saved by NFL owners

Ultimately, the vote to ban the controversial play failed following a tally of 22-10, falling two votes shy of the 24 needed to ban the play.

Eagles icon Jason Kelce was also in Minnesota to defend the merits of the play.

And the former center was seen smiling and hugging Eagles staff after the vote had concluded.

The Packers led the charge to ban the play over the past year, even changing the wording of late in a refreshed bid to convince owners.

While the initial proposal in March referred to a ban on players pushing their teammate from behind ‘immediately at the snap,’ the new proposal does not specifically use the word ‘snap’ at all.

‘Prohibits an offensive player from pushing, pulling, lifting or assisting the runner except by individually blocking opponents for him,’ the proposal reads in the updated ‘Effect’ section.

The new proposal also entirely replaced one section – which referred specifically to the snap – with a more simplified line: ‘assist the runner except by individually blocking opponents for him.’

Lurie and the Eagles lifted the Lombardi Trophy after beating the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX

Ultimately, the play was preserved, with ESPN’s Adam Schefter later revealing who voted against a ban.

In addition to the Eagles, the Ravens, Browns, Lions, Jaguars, Dolphins, Patriots, Saints, Jets and Titans voted against a ban.

Notably, Saints coach Kellen Moore is a former assistant of Eagles coach Nick Sirianni.

Meanwhile, the Colts and Cardinals (led by former Sirianni assistants Shane Steichen and Jonathon Gannon respectively) voted to ban the play.