Saints passed one of the deciding votes to save the Eagles' tush push

The Philadelphia Eagles' signature "tush push" play lives to frustrate defenses another day, and it may not have happened without the support of the New Orleans Saints. NFL owners gathered for a vote at spring meetings in Minneapolis on Wednesday, needing 24 of the 32 ballots to ban the controversial play.

But they only got 22. The Saints were one of ten teams who voted in favor of keeping the play, per ESPN's Adam Schefter:

• Philadelphia Eagles
• New Orleans Saints
• Baltimore Ravens
• Cleveland Browns
• Detroit Lions
• Jacksonville Jaguars
• Miami Dolphins
• New England Patriots
• New York Jets
• Tennessee Titans

So that's nine teams (and the Eagles) who aren't scared to compete. If you can't run the play yourself, practice it until you can. If you can't stop it, don't try to litigate it out of the sport because your team isn't up to the challenge. Clearly the Saints are on the right side of this, which is good to see. If the Saints had voted to ban the tush push, all it would have taken was another one of those nine teams to follow them. Instead, it'll continue to make a difference in today's game.

The Saints voting in favor of the play is expected given everyone's past comments. First-year Saints head coach Kellen Moore has said it takes "a huge investment to execute that play at a really high level" while his old boss and Eagles counterpart Nick Sirianni said that "Moore better vote for it" along with his other assistants-turned-head coaches around the league. Ironically, Moore's team did cast one of the two ballots to keep the play legal, while neither the Arizona Cardinals (coached by Sirianni's former defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon) nor the Indianapolis Colts (coached by Shane Steichen, Moore's predecessor as offensive coordinator) did. Ultimately, Moore and the Saints helped it get across the finish line.