In a sweeping memo written entirely in bold italics, the NFL instructed referees to watch the Eagles’ tush push the way raccoons watch unguarded pizza. Absolute focus, minimal blinking, and an acceptance that tonight you will witness nature at its most resourceful. America, your national pastime is now butt geometry.

League officials insist this is about integrity, competitive balance, and making sure no one gets a free yard just for cosplaying as a rugby scrum in a helmet. They have formally added Butt Physics to the officiating curriculum, somewhere between ‘what is a catch’ and ‘the overtime rules we dare not speak of.’ MIT offered to help, but the NFL countered with an algorithm powered by vibes and the wind.

After missed false starts against the Chiefs, the league decided the tush push has become too powerful, like a cheat code entered with cheek muscles. ‘We simply need to know if the tush pushed before the tush was allowed to push,’ said one executive, seconds before falling into a philosophical spiral about causality and thighs.

New training films now feature twelve minutes of slow-motion gluteography, narrated in hushed tones as if describing a rare snow leopard. Refs are told to study pad levels, heel clicks, and the ancient sign of the quivering quad. Some opted for monocles to appear scholarly; one chose a snorkel, just in case the line of scrimmage is deeper than expected.

To achieve true enlightenment, each official will be issued a pair of referee slow motion glasses, capable of detecting the precise instant a left buttock develops pre-snap ambition. If the glasses fog up, that counts as a neutral zone infraction on humidity.

The Chiefs, diplomatic as ever, suggested a compromise where the Eagles are allowed to tush push, but only uphill, into a stiff breeze, while reading the full Rule Book aloud. The league countered by threatening to call the false start so early that the play will be penalized during warmups, hours before the game and possibly before the Big Bang.

Eagles fans responded with the measured calm of a city that boos Catholic school nativity plays. To them, the tush push is not a play; it is Benjamin Franklin’s second-finest invention, right after kite-based electricity and just ahead of passive-aggressive signage.

Coaches around the league are inventing alternatives. The Dolphins proposed the Gentle Encouragement Nudge, the Patriots offered the Totally Legal Inchworm, and the Broncos unveiled the Mile-High Mutual Respect Shove, which surprisingly gained fewer than zero yards and somehow lost a minute off the play clock.

Meanwhile, merch has detonated like a confetti cannon in a Pilates studio. You can now buy a commemorative tush push coffee-table book, an artisanal yardstick, and the wildly popular quarterback sneak training wedge, which also functions as an emergency doorstop and conversation-ender at Thanksgiving.

Academics are cashing in, too. A visiting chair at the Department of Applied Gluteology claims the play fuses Roman phalanx theory with suburban HOA bylaws, producing momentum equal to one Honda Civic of collective will. Peer review was scheduled, but the peer was immediately shoved two yards forward.

From the sideline, it looks like football’s quiet mechanics finally hired a brass band. The cap sheets still matter, the coaching trees still branch, but all strategy converges on one timeless axiom: the shortest distance between two points is a politely aggressive nudge and a low center of gravity.

So yes, refs will stare at butts until Monday forgets what happened, and then they’ll stare again. If they get it right, the game moves on. If they get it wrong, the internet performs a tush push on their mentions. Either way, the league has spoken: eyes on the prize, and this week the prize is extremely, unmistakably gluteal.