Let’s say it’s the final game of the season. Two last-place teams with nothing to lose are playing in front of a three-quarters-empty stadium. One of the coaches, for the lulz, pulls out every trick play and gimmick play in the book. The Statue of Liberty. The Flea Flicker. A Hail Mary on first down.
Would this be considered untoward by the League? Should either coach be expecting a phone call from the Commissioner on Monday morning?
Likely not, especially if this was in an effort to win the game in the latter part of it.
My understanding is that the reason these plays are trick plays is that they don’t work as well as the regular plays if the other team is expecting them. After a couple of trick plays the other team would be prepared and the team using them would be in deep trouble. It’s not just about revealing the trick plays for that game and that the coach is on full tilt. It also means that the other teams would have more material to study for next season’s games. It probably wouldn’t be the NFL commissioner calling on Monday morning, it would be the team’s owner handing the coach his pink slip.
Why would the owner complain? The owner doesn’t care if the team wins or loses; they care if the team draws a lot of eyeballs (buying tickets or watching ads on TV). And for a team who’s not drawing eyeballs by playing good football, running a bunch of crazy stunt plays probably would help.
A Hail Mary, by definition is a desperation pass thrown to the end zone at the end of each half with little time on the clock. Thus, ‘A Hail Mary on first down’ isn’t really possible. And deep passes on first down are certainly not uncommon.
And, judging by the OP’s link, the flea-flicker isn’t really uncommon, either. Yes, it’s a trick play, but it’s also one that’s seen several times each season. And I would guess that if it’s run more than once in a game, the defense will be prepared for it.
I will grant that the Statue of Liberty is an uncommon trick play, although the execution of the play has to be perfect for it to work. And once it’s been successfully run in a game, it probably won’t work again.
Although it would certainly be entertaining if a team tried a gimmick play on each snap. It would certainly make the highlights on ESPN, whereas a ‘normal’ meaningless game probably wouldn’t get a second look.
Trick plays aren’t all that rare. Remember the Philly Special? 
Tricks by their very nature only work when the opposition is not expecting them.
I’m as cynical as the next guy, but I do think the owners prefer winning to not winning.
The seem to care about 1) money, 2) winning/ego, and 3) massages.
Those are all real plays. If they work they gain yards or points. There’s nothing wrong with any of them in any game. The league doesn’t care. The coach may feel some blowback if they don’t work in other games, but in the scenario described in the OP the coach’s fate was likely decided already by the team’s last place position.
If the season’s a bust anyway, additional losses only make your drafting position better.
Um…this is not correct. Owners do, in fact, care about winning. They fire coaches for not winning, or not improving the team. They hire new coaches, better players, upgrade facilities, etc…all because they want to win.
Starting the game with an on-side kick, for instance.
Owners care about winning only because winning is usually the most reliable way to get eyeballs and hence dollars. But there’s not much dollar difference between being the worst team and being the second-worst team, so you might as well try something gimmicky.
Wasn’t Bill Veeck famous for running crazy stunts? Granted, that was baseball, not football, but the principles involved are the same.
Veeck sent a dwarf to bat thinking he would draw a walk and he did. But then baseball told him not to do that again.
I bet some number crunchers would enjoy dissecting this. See how well various trick plays work in real action if the defense/return team is aware that at minimum the premeditated option for one exists every single play.
It was pre-season, but the Minnesota Vikings tried multiple on-side kicks in a game back in the 1980s. I think there were penalties on a couple of them, but the Vikings tried the on-side kick again anyway. I seriously doubt that would have happened in a regular season game, but it was a chuckle at the time.
No. You obviously know nothing about sports. Why do you keep opining on things you don’t understand? Owners like to win. This is not rocket science.
What do sports have to do with it? Sports teams owners aren’t in sports; they’re in business. And in business, owners like to make money.
I feel like, as with most generalizations about groups of people, you’re both wrong. And both right. There are definitely owners who care much more about winning than about their bottom lines: Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban, Original Recipe George Steinbrenner. There are owners who view their team as a business, and care about winning only insofar as it affects income: Bill Bidwell, Jeff Loria. There are owners who are actual aliens from another planet: James Dolan. And there are a lot of guys who fall somewhere in the middle.
For the third time, you do not know what you are talking about.