"Shuffle" Pass in Football

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have the Bronco game on in the other room, and I just heard the announcer say that someone threw a “shuffle” pass. This is a pass that is thrown underhanded or like a shot is “put”, usually to a running back.

Growing up, this was universally known as a “shovel” pass, presumably because the arm motion is somewhat like the motion used in shovelling. I googled “Shovel pass” and found a story about the death of the inventor of the “shovel” pass here. If the guy who invented it called it the shovel pass, than I guess thats what it is.

So when in the last two decades did it become the “shuffle” pass? If you google “shuffle pass” you see all kinds of hits, some from football coaching websites.

2

Probably folk etymology. See these examples of it occurring for other words.

3

Just to second the OP, I’ve always called it a shovel pass, also.

4

You know, I’m not sure that “shuffle” pass is as accepted as you are implying. Most likely the announcer either mis-spoke or was simply using the wrong word out of ignorance. Upon a quick Google I only see one website in the first handful of pages that’s about football, and it is included in a “letters from a reader” type page. In reality that reader, and the subsequent respondent, probably just used the wrong word out of ignorance, since it sounds like shovel anyways.

Ironically Wikipedia is of no help at all one the subject because it redirects Shovel Pass to Screen Pass which is incorrect.

One could make an argument that a shovel pass is a method of throwing a ball during a screen play, but in most circumstances a shovel pass is simply a forward hand off which may or may not occur with the upfield blocking of a screen. Really it is more similar to a draw play than a screen.

In short, my opinion is that it’s not an accepted term, and never has been. Which of course doesn’t eliminate the act of talking heads spreading it around.

5

Incidentally the above cited Wiki page calls a screen pass a “shuttle pass” which is something that I find to be patently wrong. If I knew how to change it on the page I would, but there you go.

Next thing you know we’ll be trying to figure out what H-backs and flankers and slots and wings precisely are…

6

Look above the article. There is a tab that says “edit this page.” Click on that tab and you can edit the article. It’s fairly intuitive from there.

7

Well, then. I was misdirected by the “edit” links at the end of each section and there wasn’t one for the main body. It’s like Wiki ran a screen play on me by hiding the edit link in plain sight…yeah, that’s it.

8

I’ve never heard that before, although it’s quite easy to mix-up “shuffle” and “shovel.” Are you sure the announcer said “shuffle”?

Even if he did, just a quick search of Google shows it’s not terribly common:

+“shuffle pass” +football – 595 hits (1.2%)
+“shovel pass” +football – 47,300 hits (98.8%)

Of course, this depends on whether you consider my method valid, but I would call those results “near universal” for calling it a “shovel pass.”