For much longer than I've been covering the National Football League we've been told that the NFL is a copycat league. Some coaches may not be so blunt about it, but everyone is willing to pillage and cherry pick the best ideas from opposing coaching staffs, and what we've seen a whole lot of around the league over the last two seasons has been teams willing to take the 'Tush Push,' popularized by the Philadelphia Eagles, and come up with their own version.
The adaptation du jour this season has been having a bigger-bodied player take the under center snap as opposed to the quarterback. That is, unless you're a team like the Eagles, the Buffalo Bills, the Los Angeles Chargers or any other offense that has an abnormally large tank at quarterback.
The Houston Texans are one of the many teams that don't have the luxury of having a tight end sized quarterback on the roster, so instead, they've opted for the next best thing... Cade Stover, a 6-foot-4, 250 lb. second-year backup tight end out of Ohio State who played some quarterback -- along with linebacker -- in high school. Now a half-decade removed from high school, Stover is back under center taking snaps again.
Against the Indianapolis Colts last week, the Texans lined up for their 'Stover Shove' four times, a new wrinkle in a Nick Caley scheme that has struggled all season long to convert on short yardage plays. Stover picked up a first down on two of his four rushes, a 50% clip that isn't great by traditional 'Tush Push' standards, but better than what Houston was doing on those plays prior.
Therefore, it wouldn't be a surprise if this became a short-yardage, red zone staple for the Texans.
"We never showed it before. First couple of times pretty good and then they started catching up to it a little bit. So, hopefully, we’ll figure something out," Stover told reporters, per Aaron Wilson of KPRC2 Houston. “Keep working on it, first time bringing it out the bag. So, hopefully, we’ll keep building on it. We’ve had it in the bag for a while. Kind of decided this was the week to do it, so we did it. It worked out all right a couple of times. Anything that can help us win ballgames and critical downs, critical situations, that’s what we’re gonna do.”
Expounding on the new look, Texans offensive coordinator Nick Caley explained that the decision to utilize Stover in this manner is not just meant to be a gimmicky sort of look. It came to fruition out of necessity.
“The genesis of it was for us trying to find an alternative way to give us an opportunity to convert first downs and Cade had experience with that," Caley explained.
Regardless of the inciting incident or whether those on the outside looking in are enjoying the asthetics of the play, I wouldn't expect that it will go away any time soon, especially when you have some linemen, such as starting left guard Tytus Howard speaking out about how they enjoy the play.
“Oh yeah, I love the play,” Howard said. “The thing is it gives us offensive lineman a chance to just fire off the ball and get an easy first down. So, it’s something we can continue to work on and get better at, I think the more we do it, the better we get.”