Sorry, wasn’t casting aparagus at you, but at Lady Day Tomlinson.
I believe Fred Jackson wasn’t a college QB. But the Bills ran a couple of trick plays last season where he threw a pass.
You don’t often see a non-overtime game where the clock runs out and you still don’t know who’s going to win.
Was that really a flea-flicker? I’ve always thought of the flea-flicker as a handoff to the running back who then pitches it back to the quarterback for the deep pass. Anyway, that was a nice trick play.
I’m trying to think of the last successful trick play in the playoffs before that one. I’m sure there have been some since, but all I can come up with is the Antwaan Randle El pass to Hines Ward in Super Bowl XL.
Edelman’s a great receiver and kick returner, and now he gets to retire with a perfect QB rating. Not a bad career.
Is video of this play legitimately available? It sounds interesting.
I don’t know about “legitimately”, but I found this on YouTube:
I think this goes to the NFL version of the video. The NFL keeps very close control over all possible highlights of everything NFL.
That’s not the only trick play that New England used.
Lateral to a WR to throw downfield is pretty cool but in the below play, they had 4 linemen and 1 back declared as “ineligible” to throw off the defense. Seems pretty gimmicky to not let the defense adjust, but it’s OK in the rulebook, evidently.
You do something like that too often and it no longer has that element of surprise. Same thing with fake kicks or punts.
I just watched the video, that’s not a flea flicker.
Yeah, in a flea flicker, the ball goes QB->RB->back to QB->pass. Here’s a flea flicker from the 2013 season.
I also seem to recall the late, great Walter Payton being involved in passing plays of the OP’s nature . I couldn’t find any Youtube videos of it specifically (although I can find him getting direct snaps in the Wildcat formation), but he does have 8 career passing touchdowns (most for a non-QB) and six interceptions (also most for a non-QB.)
So, what’s the right name for this? A variation of the halfback pass substituting wide receiver for halfback? Where was he lined up?
This page describes it as Dual Quarterbacks although I don’t think it’s common usage.
(bolding mine)
Even before that I recall Jim Brown throwing a few passes. I recall one play in particular when Brown stopped in the endzone and threw a pass that was almost complete only to have the refs rule a safety because his “forward progress” was stopped and someone on defense was touching him. That was a call which at the time they’d never have made if he were quarterback. I don’t know if they would even now, though they are much more protective of QBs now.
Quick question: was the wildcat called the wildcat back in the 80s? I don’t seem to recall hearing that term until the past decade or two, but I would have only been about 10 years old during Payton’s heyday, so it’s something I may not have paid attention to.
(ETA: And, while I’m thinking out loud, were backless 5 wide receiver formations also not common in the day? I seem to remember 4 WR being about as far as most teams would go, but now 5 wide is not uncommon. I remember playing the first version of Madden on the Commodore 64, and it came with an extensive playbook as well as with a cool playbook editor, where you can create pretty much any legal play you can dream of, and 5 wide receivers was one you had to custom make yourself, as it wasn’t included in the standard batch.)
Run & Shoot offense was popular late 80s early 90s.
Warren Moon (Houston Oilers again) was a big part of that.
It really didn’t make it to the NFL until the 90s. According to wiki the first time it was used was 1998 by Minnesota.
Ah, nevermind. The Payton stuff I saw wasn’t a Wildcat at all. He was just straight-up QB-ing.