Tag: nfl

Why does an offensive lineman slap the center's butt in football?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why does an offensive lineman slap the center’s butt in football? I see this all the time now when watching football and I never used to. What changed?

Thanks,
Melvin

Dear Melvin,

The offensive lineman next to the center, called a guard, slaps the center’s butt as part of the elaborate set of signals a team uses to coordinate the snap that starts a football play. The snap has been an evolving practice with league-wide trends and team specific wrinkles. The guard’s slapping of the center’s butt is the latest in a long line of innovations aimed at giving the offense a slight advantage against the defense. Here’s how it works and some of the history behind it.

In the old days, offenses in competitive football used basically the same system we all used when playing football in our backyards as kids. When the quarterback says “hike” the center snaps the ball to him and the rest of the offensive team begins to block or run routes as programmed by the play. As you might expect though, defenses caught on to the meaning of the word “hike” and charged at the quarterback as soon as he said it. So, teams went to great lengths to disguise their signal to snap the ball. They might use different words or alter the number of times the quarterback could say a word before it told the offense the play was starting. Soon though, the popularity of college and professional football, new stadium designs that seemed amplify noise, and the increasingly intentional involvement of screaming fans meant that offenses on the road simply couldn’t hear the quarterback. Offenses had to adjust to the noise and do so while maintaining the advantage of being in sole possession of knowing exactly when the ball is going to get snapped.

There is a simply wonderful article about how offenses adjusted and evolved to this challenge called, The Silent Treatment, by Mark Bowden in Sports Illustrated. I had absolutely no idea, but there was a time when the NFL actually had a rule which said that if the crowd was too noisy, the quarterback did not have to snap the ball. The ref would ask the crowd to quiet down and if they did not, the home team would be penalized. This seems totally crazy nowadays when we expect the home crowd’s noise to be an advantage for the home team by making it impossible for the visiting offense to hear each other. The rule was struck from the books in the early 1980s and from that moment, the defense had a big advantage at home. Offensive coaches had to adjust and finally, one of them did. Bowden tells the story of that adjustment through its integral figure, the former NFL guard and long-time offensive line coach, Howard Mudd.  Mudd was thinking about the problem of coordinating offenses without being able to hear when he talked to a fellow coach who had spent some time coaching football at a school for the deaf. If they could do it, he figured NFL athletes could do it to. He implemented a system called the “silent count.” In this system, the quarterback would give some visual signal to the center (who is looking backwards through his legs.) That would cue the center to raise his head or wiggle it side to side. This visual cue would tell the rest of the offensive line to begin counting: one one thousand, two one thousand, three… and at a pre-set number of thousands or Mississippis, the center would snap the ball to the quarterback while the rest of the team simultaneously began their movements. Mudd’s team, the Indianapolis Colts who had a young Peyton Manning and a great left tackle, Tarik Glenn, adopted Mudd’s silent count so effectively that it became a weapon for them:

The Colts got good at it. Glenn got very good at it. He learned to coordinate the count with the swivel of his head. It was like a dance move. “It made a huge difference,” he says. “It gave me time to face the task at hand. It’s all about timing, and pretty quick I could just feel it.” In fact Glenn started getting off the snap so fast that refs flagged him, claiming he had jumped too early. Mudd defended him. “He would send a man to the league office and have them review it,” says Glenn. “After a while they started to see that I wasn’t offside. Coach Howard didn’t just come up with the silent count, he sold it, to the team and then to the league.”

Like any good innovation, the silent count was soon adopted and altered by teams around the league. According to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Giants tackle Luke Pettigout, “used to like to hold onto Mr. Seubert’s [the guard between him and the center] pinky. He didn’t want to take his eyes off the man he had to defend. When Mr. Seubert saw the ball snapped, he’d free his hand and Mr. Pettigout could go.” The New York Jets, according to NJ.com, are one of the teams who use the innovation you mentioned in your question — the guard hitting the center’s butt: “The center has such an important pre-snap job – identifying the linemen’s attack point for blocking on running plays – that some offensive coordinators don’t want the center to take his eyes off the defensive front. So those coordinators will have one guard look back through his legs for the quarterback’s leg lift. When the guard sees it, he will tap the center, who then begins his head nodding.” So that’s the answer to your question. When the guard hits the center’s butt, he’s relaying a signal from the quarterback to the center to ask him to begin a silent count that will lead to the ball being snapped.

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

 

What is identifying the Mike linebacker in football?

Dear Sports Fan,

Something funny happened yesterday in the Giants vs. Cowboys game. Or at least, the football fans I was hanging out with thought it was hysterical. The Cowboys quarterback shouted that one of the Giants players was the “Mike” and the Giants player yelled back that he wasn’t the Mike. I get that it’s funny for opposing players to be having a dialog on the field but I don’t know what they were talking about. What is identifying the Mike linebacker in football?

Thanks,
Jordan

 

Dear Jordan,

I saw that video too! It was pretty funny. Here’s the video for everyone to watch. After you give it another watch, I’ll explain what the quarterback was doing and why. After that, I’ll attempt the always dangerous explanation of why something was funny.

The name “Mike” is common football short-hand for the person playing the middle linebacker position. We’ve got a detailed post on linebackers and their specific positions within the most common defensive formations, so I won’t go into too much detail here. Suffice it to say that in a standard, vanilla defensive formation, there are often three linebackers on the field lined up behind four defensive linemen. The linemen are the big dudes who line up with their hands on the ground opposite their behemoth counterparts on the offensive line. The linebackers line up behind the defensive line, standing up, where they are in great position to tackle a running back, cover a wide-receiver, or sprint up to try to hit the quarterback. The three linebackers positions in this standard 4-3 formation are not called left, middle, and right, they’re called weak, middle, and strong. (Quick detour — the strong side is the side with more offensive players lined up on the line of scrimmage — linemen and tight ends, the weak side is the one with fewer players, usually just two.) These positions have nicknames: Will, Mike, and Sam which correspond with Weak, Middle, and Strong. (It hasn’t always been Will, Mike, and Sam. Back in 1959, the Giants coaches used the names Wanda, Meg, and Sara.) When a quarterback screams a defender’s number before the start of a play or points at him, he’s identifying the Mike or middle linebacker.

You might be thinking to yourself, “That’s silly, I can look on any team’s website and find out before the game who is playing middle linebacker. Why would the quarterback need to scream about it before each play?” It’s a good point. The thing is, what’s on the website is the player who plays the middle linebacker position in an absolute sense. What the quarterback cares about is who is playing the middle linebacker on each play in a relative sense. Or, to be more realistic about it, he is identifying the player he wants his teammates to consider the middle linebacker of the defense on that play no matter what position he’s actually playing.

On passing plays, somewhere between five and eight of a quarterback’s teammates are responsible for keeping the quarterback safe by blocking defenders who are trying to tackle him from getting near enough to him to do that. The plan for how to do this is called a blocking scheme. Blocking schemes are about as complicated as the choreography of a ballet and at least as opaque to outsiders. Let’s pretend for our purposes though, that they’re pretty simple. Let’s say that the five offensive linemen are going to block, one-on-one, one member of the opposing defense. They’ll move as one unit of five players to block five defenders. They just need to be aimed. When the quarterback calls out the Mike, he’s centering the blocking scheme. He’s ordering the offensive line to center themselves on that player and then block accordingly. If the quarterback calls out someone lined up far to the right as the Mike, the offensive line will aim themselves to the right, the center blocking the Mike, the guards blocking the defenders lined up to either side of him, and the tackles blocking the defenders two people on either side of the Mike. If the Mike is to the left, the line will aim itself to the left. If the Mike is actually in the center of the field, like in the video above, the line will be centered.

So, what’s so funny about the video of Jameel McClain loudly denying Tony Romo’s declaration of his being the Mike? Well, for one thing, it’s funny because the Cowboys have no reason to believe anything McClain is saying. McClain’s profession is to help win football games. Why would he help the opposition? It’s like a poker player interrupting the deliberations of an opponent at the table by saying, “don’t worry about calling my bet, I only have a pair of twos.” McClain’s position is so unbelievable that saying he’s not the Mike is not even a good form of misinformation, it’s just silly. If you really want to get comedy and football nerdy at the same time, you might argue that the funniest thing about McClain screaming that he wasn’t the Mike is that it could be interpreted as a deliberate misunderstanding of the two meanings of Mike: relative and absolute. You could argue that McClain was interpreting Romo’s declaration that for the purposes of the Cowboys’ blocking scheme, Romo wanted his team to interpret McClain as the relative Mike (center of the blocking scheme) and answering honestly that he wasn’t the center of the defensive scheme or the absolute Mike. When everyone can tell the truth and successfully communicate nothing to anyone… that’s funny.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

Monday, October 20

  1. Football, football, football: It was another full day of football. Sunday culminated with a record-breaking moment from Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning but there was lots of action before that. Get all the information you need to engage in football small-talk from our NFL One Liners column.
  2. NASCAR single elimination: Three NASCAR drivers needed to win Sunday’s race to stay alive in the playoffs, called the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Only one driver could win. That was Brad Keselowski who needed and got a little help on the last lap from Matt Kenseth. Coincidentally, the two of them had gotten into a physical altercation after the previous week’s race. NASCAR, it’s like professional wrestling except with cars.
    Line: Car racing, like politics, makes for strange bedfellows.
  3. Liverpool gets a gift: Own goals (scoring on yourself) happen in all sports but they’re most tragic in soccer where goals happen so rarely. Queens Park Rangers had climbed their way back to a 2-2 tie against Liverpool yesterday when, right before the game ended, Steven Caulker scored against his own team! Gah!
    Line: Losing on an own goal in extra time has got to be the worst (sports) thing ever!

Week 7 NFL One Liners

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by Google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

Week 7

Sunday, October 19, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Minnesota Vikings 16, at Buffalo Bills 17

You don’t necessarily need to have two great teams to get an entertaining football game. This game proved that point with a last second touchdown which pushed the home team to a victory.
Line: Not great teams but a great game.

Atlanta Falcons 7, at Baltimore Ravens 29

Football can be a very complex game but it has some important factors which are very simple. Teams need to be able to protect their quarterback to have a chance to win. Atlanta has had so many injuries on their offensive line that they can’t protect their quarterback.
Line: Atlanta’s loss was all about their offensive line or lack thereof.

Cleveland Browns 6, at Jacksonville Jaguars 24

Oh Cleveland. After so many years of being bad, you were so impressive through your first five games of the season. You played hard and were competitive in every single game. You seemed so far from the lousy Jaguars who had lost every game they’d played. Oh Cleveland.
Line: Welp, there go the Browns again.

Carolina Panthers 17, at Green Bay Packers 38

After struggling at the start of the season, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers went on local sports talk radio and told the Packer fans to relax. Four straight victories later, if Wisconsin gets any more relaxed, we could have a serious cheddar shortage on our hands.
Line: Guess Rodgers knew what he was talking about when he told the fans to relax, huh?

Miami Dolphins 27,  at Chicago Bears 14

The Bears have now lost three of their last four games and they’re officially entering soap-opera territory. There was, apparently, a big kerfluffle in the locker room after the game with Bears blaming each other at high decibels.
Line: The Bears are falling apart.

Cincinnati Bengals 0, at Indianapolis Colts 21

You could say the Bengals are falling apart but I think it’s more likely that they are being revealed. Their three early wins came against the Ravens, Falcons, and Titans. Since there were so few 3-0 teams this year, that made people think the Bengals were really good. Now that we know a little more about the Falcons and Titans (that they’re not so good), those wins don’t look so impressive.
Line: The Bengals aren’t falling apart, they’re just not good.

New Orleans Saints 23, at Detroit Lions 24

I was totally convinced that the Saints would win this game. In past years, when the Saints have been a reliably very good team and the Lions have reliably fallen apart at the least provocation, they would have. This year, the Lions are made of firmer stuff.
Line: The Lions are for real this year.

Seattle Seahawks 26, at St. Louis Rams 28

Stop the presses! The defending champion Seahawks have lost two games in a row! Actually, it’s okay, start them again. The Rams are sneaky good even though they don’t win that much.
Line: The Seahawks will be fine.

Tennessee Titans 17, at Washington Redskins 19

Washington went to their third quarterback on the year and still beat the Titans who were, admittedly, on their second string quarterback themselves. All in all, not a game to be remembered by anyone involved.
Line: Meeeehhhh.

SUNDAY, October 19, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Kansas City Chiefs 23, at San Diego Chargers 20

We’re entering the part of the season where some games just mean a lot more to one team than their opponent. At 2-3, the Chiefs needed to win this game a lot more than the 5-1 Chargers. Sometimes that is the difference between two teams close in talent.
Line: The Chiefs just needed this one more than the Chargers.

New York Giants 21, at Dallas Cowboys 31

The Giants hung around and made it competitive but the Cowboys proved that you should never challenge a Texan when football is on the line.
Line: It’s a change to be able to use the cliche “How about them Cowboys” and not just get resigned shaking heads.

Arizona Cardinals 24, at Oakland Raiders 13

With the Jaguars beating the Browns, I think that makes the Raiders the only team left that hasn’t won a game. Losing to the Cardinals is nothing to be ashamed of though, Arizona is 5-1 and it looks like they deserve that record.
Line: The Raiders will eventually win a game but probably not against Arizona.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

San Francisco 49ers 17, at Denver Broncos 42

Peyton Manning, quarterback of the Broncos, set the NFL record for all-time touchdown passes thrown during this game. His team knew he was only three touchdown passes away from the record when they started the game and they seemed hell-bent to make sure he broke the record at home, on national TV. The 49ers never looked like they had a chance.
Line: The Broncos really wanted Manning to break the record last night and they made sure he did. Winning the game went along with that.

NFL Week 7 Good Cop, Bad Cop Precaps

The NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the Week 7 matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps. If you’re worried about watching too much football or if you’re negotiating for a little break during the weekend, read our weekly feature, Do Not Watch This Game.

Week 7

Sunday, October 19, at 1:00 p.m. ET

Minnesota Vikings at Buffalo Bills

Good cop: This is a must win game for both teams!

Bad cop: If you’re playing a must win game in Week 7 it’s because you’re not very good. Two not very good teams = a not very good game.

Atlanta Falcons at Baltimore Ravens

Good cop: Birds vs. Birds! The Quarterbacks even played at bird-related colleges — Joe Flacco for the Delaware Blue Hens and Matt Ryan for the Boston College Eagles! Birds!

Bad cop: You’re right. Birds. Very exciting.

Cleveland Browns at Jacksonville Jaguars

Good cop: This is a “trap game” for the Browns! One week after beating the dreaded Steelers, will they trip up against the Jaguars!??!

Bad cop: No. No one trips while playing the Jaguars except the Jaguars.

Carolina Panthers at Green Bay Packers

Good cop: Last week, these teams played in two of the most exciting games I’ve seen in a long time! The Panthers tied and the Packers won in the last eight seconds!

Bad cop: Ugh. This will not be a feast for the eyes. Teal and silver vs. green and gold. Clash city.

Miami Dolphins at Chicago Bears

Good cop: It’s the Brandon Marshall revenge game! A few years ago he was run out of town by the Miami organization, fans, and media! Now he gets a chance to beat them as a wide receiver on the Bears!

Bad cop: They paid him millions of dollars and then traded him. That’s not exactly tarring and feathering in the grand scheme of things.

Cincinnati Bengals at Indianapolis Colts

Good cop: It’s the new elite of the NFL! The Bengals and the Colts are the two top ten teams without recognizable, veteran stars! I want to see this!

Bad cop:  The Colts are for real but the Bengals are not. In the last two weeks, they’re defense has given up eighty points!

New Orleans Saints at Detroit Lions

Good cop: The Saints haven’t won an away game yet this year but this will be the week! The Lions are ripe for an upset and they play in a dome, just like the Saints! A dome is a dome, amiright?

Bad cop: You’re right. Football is always better played outside on grass instead of inside on a carpet though.

Seattle Seahawks at St. Louis Rams

Good cop: The Seahawks lost last week to the Cowboys! They’re gonna be out for blood this week!

Bad cop: The poor Rams. So many good teams to play, so little hope.

Tennessee Titans at Washington Redskins

Good cop: Oh boy! That’s all I can say! Oh boy!

Bad cop: Things are really bad when Good Cop is speechless. This is a bad game. Watch something else. Like paint drying or grass growing. Even grass not growing or paint getting wetter would be better. 

SUNDAY, October 19, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

Kansas City Chiefs at San Diego Chargers

Good cop: This is going to be rock-em-sock-em, full throttle, no-holds-barred, offensive football!

Bad cop: Too bad I’m going to miss it. I’ll be watching the National Mixed Metaphor Championship.

New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys

Good cop: If I could scream like James Brown, I would for this game! It’s a titanic clash of popular divisional opponents! Great teams, great players, great game!

Bad cop: The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Do not watch this game.

Arizona Cardinals at Oakland Raiders

Good cop: The Raiders almost broke through last week in their game against the Chargers! I think they have a chance!

Bad cop: Did you really just say “I think they have a chance” in defense of this game? Sure they have a chance. Just not a very good one.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

San Francisco 49ers at Denver Broncos

Good cop: It’s the Super Bowl runners-up versus the team that’s made the NFC championship game the last three years! It’s a game with star power all over the field! Will San Francisco’s physicality beat out Denver’s precision?!!

Bad cop: Yeah… but you never know… it wouldn’t be fun to watch if the field was made of quicksand!!!

MONDAY, October 20, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

Houston Texans at Pittsburgh Steelers

Good cop: Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is 6’5″, 241 pounds, and has a habit of holding the ball longer than most quarterbacks, trusting on his size and instincts to make plays! J.J. Watt is 6’5″, 289 pounds, and loves tackling quarterbacks who hold onto the ball even a second too long! 

Bad cop: That’s a recipe for an undramatic game if I’ve ever heard one. Pshhh.

Friday, October 17

  1. And then there were two: The San Francisco Giants finished off their series with the St. Louis Cardinals in a 6-3 victory. The game was closer than it sounds from the score. The last three runs were scored on a home run by Travis Ishikawa in the ninth inning. The Giants actually had to score one run in the eight to tie the game at three runs apiece before winning it in the ninth. Although the game was close, the series was not — the Giants won four games to one. It’s been a pattern this playoffs. For all the excitement over the Royals run and the close individual games, the series scored have all been sweeps or three or four games to one. I, for one, would like to see the World Series go six or seven games.
    Line: The Giants don’t lose championships on even years but the Royals don’t seem to lose at all!
    What’s Next: The Giants play game one of the World Series against the Royals on Tuesday, October 21, at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.
  2.  The Jets were valiant but the Patriots won: In the continuing feud between the New York Jets and the New England Patriots, last night’s game was typical. The Jets came into the game with a losing record, the Pats with a winning one. The Jets played the Pats better than one would expect given their respective records and rosters. Tom Brady played great and the Pats found a way to win. The final score was 27-25 and the Jets had a chance in the last second to win on a 58 yard field goal. That’s pretty far to kick a football, two yards farther than the Jets’ kicker had ever successfully kicked before, but we’ll never know if he was going to make it because a Patriot managed to block it at the line of scrimmage.
    Line: Brady and Bellichick won’t be around forever to beat the Jets infinitely but they’ll probably outlast the Jets quarterback and coach if the Jets keep losing.
  3. Double overtime in college football: The Utah Utes barely got by the Oregon State Beavers (how come pro teams don’t have such awesome names?) 29-23 last night. In fact, they needed double over time and 229 and three touchdowns from running back Devontae Boooker to do it. That’s a good two or three games for most running backs! This game does nothing to dispel the sneaking suspicion that the PAC 12 might be the strongest conference in the country.
    Line: You gotta say, the college football overtime rules, where teams get alternating possessions starting at the 25 yard line until one scores more than the other, are really exciting!

Deciphering TV Graphics: Fox and CBS NFL Football

Sports is no fun when you don’t know what’s going on. That’s never more true than when a beginner sports fan sits down to watch football with a bunch of die-hards. One of the constant challenges in that scenario are the television graphics that overlay the football game. Every network has a different way of displaying information to the viewer. These graphics are packed with information and mostly well designed but they are never explained. Networks simply assume that viewers will be able to decipher the TV graphics for themselves. Most long-time football fans can but for casual fans, it’s just one more artifact that makes getting into the sport difficult. That’s not how it should be! I took screenshots of the Fox and CBS NFL Football TV graphics so that I could explain them in detail. Both graphics show exactly the same set of information but they arrange it in different ways. I’ll do the other two NFL stations next week and more sports later. Send me an email at dearsportsfan@gmail.com or leave a comment if you have a particularly problematic graphic for me to unravel.

What information is encoded in these TV graphics?

Possession

Possession is simply which team has the ball at the moment. This is one of the harder things to discern from the graphics. Fox uses a yellow bar which is easy to miss and looks a little like the timeout counter. CBS uses a small white dot next to the name of the team that has the ball.

Score

The score should be one of the easiest things to see from the graphic and indeed, it is. Fox does a better job of this by making the score by far the biggest numbers out there. CBS’s score is only marginally bigger than the other numbers on its graphic.

Timeouts remaining

Each team gets three timeouts per half. Fox and CBS both show the number of time outs remaining by using yellow bars. In our screen captures, both teams have three time outs remaining in both games.

Quarter

Pretty intuitive, this is just which quarter the game is currently in. Since quarters range from 1st to 4th and so do downs, it’s better to have the quarter close to the time remaining and far from the down and distance. I like CBS’ approach to displaying the quarter better than Fox’s.

Time left in quarter

NFL games are organized into four quarters of 15 minutes each. Like basketball and hockey, the clock counts down from 15 as opposed to soccer which counts up to 90.

Down and distance

Down and distance are football shorthand to express the situation of the game. Which of the four chances a team has to move the ball ten yards are they on and how far do they have left to travel? I wrote a whole post on this which I recommend if you, like the person who asked me this question, have always wanted to know what down and distance were but were afraid to ask.

Play time left on clock

Teams with the ball have forty seconds from the end of one play to start running another. This is an important tactical factor because teams can stretch out the time between plays if they are ahead or rush them if they are behind. A penalty is assessed for letting the play clock run out without running a play. For viewers it can also tell them when to look up from whatever else they’re doing so they don’t miss a play.

Got it, let’s see the graphics

CBS Sports Football Graphic

Fox Sports Football Graphic

Tuesday, October 14

  1. Niners win, Rams lose — There were two things that stood out in last night’s football game which ended as a 31 – 17 victory for the San Francisco 49ers over the St. Louis Rams: The first was a phantom penalty call against the Rams at the end of the first half which stopped them from increasing their lead from 14-3 to 21-3. After that bad call, the 49ers scored 28 of the next 31 points in the game. The other notable thing was the Rams wearing their bright, beautiful (to my eyes) yellow and blue uniforms from the 1990s. Fun!
    Line: If it hadn’t been for that phantom offensive pass interference call at the end of the second quarter, things might have turned out a little differently.
  2. Baseball playoffs quaintly rained out — It seems like a remnant of a nicer, kinder past for sports, but the baseball playoff game last night between the Baltimore Orioles and the Kansas City Royals actually got rained out! It’s kind of cool that some things, even if they are elemental, are more important than sports and television schedules.
    What’s Next: The game has been rescheduled for tonight at 8 p.m. ET and will be televised on TBS.
  3. Topsy turvy start for some hockey teams — The Boston Bruins played a rare Monday matinee hockey game yesterday against the Colorado Avalanche and lost 2-1. This brings their record to 1-3 and means that after a win on opening night, the Bruins have lost three games in a row. This is a rare bad patch for the Bruins. It’s been 145 games since they last lost three in a row. That said, it’s probably a little bit too early to worry. Just like no one really expects the Tampa Bay Lightning or Nashville Predators to remain undefeated.
    Line: It’s a long season, let’s all just take a deep breath.

What is a spike in football? Why would you fake it?

Dear Sports Fan,

I was watching the Green Bay Packers play the Miami Dolphins yesterday and Aaron Rodgers “faked a spike.” The announcers acted like it was a big deal but I don’t really understand what happened. What is a spike in football? And why would you fake it?

Wondering,
Ana

 

Dear Ana,

Great question! When Aaron Rodgers faked that spike yesterday, it was exciting for a bunch of different reasons, some topical and some historic. Before I explain the specific play though, let’s get into the nature of a spike in football.

Spiking the football just means slamming the ball straight down onto the ground. A spike is a physical act. It’s often done in celebration, particularly, it seems by the New England Patriots. They’re just one team but they seem to loom large in the celebratory spiking world. Their star tight end, Rob Gronkowski is a spiking artiste of the highest order. Alan Siegel of Boston Magazine wrote in his A Brief History of the Gronkowski Spike that “Rob Gronkowski’s method of celebrating a touchdown is blissfully unsophisticated performance art.” In a recent game, quarterback Tom Brady and wide receiver Julian Edelman played hot potato until Brady finally spiked in triumph. Spiking the ball in celebration is an instinctive thing but it’s not what you’re asking about.

Spiking the ball can also have a very specific tactical use within the game of football. When a team is trailing at the end of a half or game, they’re compete not just against the other team but against the clock. Depending on what happens in each play, the clock either runs between plays or it stops. It’s sometimes hard to keep track of all of the various clock rules but here are the most common ones:

  • The Clock Stops
    • When a team takes a time out
    • When the ball goes out of bounds
    • When a pass is incomplete
    • When there’s a score
    • When there’s a penalty
  • The Clock Runs
    • When a runner or receiver is tackled in the field

Spiking the ball is like a special form of the incomplete pass. According to the NFL rules, “A player under center is permitted to stop the game clock legally to save time if, immediately upon receiving the snap, he begins a continuous throwing motion and throws the ball directly into the ground.” Spiking in this form is also called “clocking the ball” because you’re spiking to stop the clock.

So, when a team is running out of time late in the game and they either don’t have any time outs left or don’t want to take one, they can line up as for a regular play and then have the quarterback spike the ball. This stops the clock but it does count as a down. So, if it’s first and ten and the quarterback spikes the ball, the clock stops but the downs shift to second and ten. If you don’t know what that means, that’s fine — check out our post on understanding downs in football.

The thing with spiking the ball, is that usually it’s pretty obvious when a team is going to do it. The context of the game dictates when a team should spike and, just in case it wasn’t obvious, the quarterback is usually gesticulating wildly with spike-like arm motions to make sure that his teammates know what he’s going to do. It’s natural for the defense to pick up on what’s going on, and because they know their opponents aren’t really trying to do anything other than stop the clock by spiking, they have a tendency to relax and catch their breath for the next play. This leaves them vulnerable to a crafty quarterback who decides to take advantage of their assumptions.

If a quarterback decides to trick the defense, he can pretend to spike the ball and then run a regular play. This is what Aaron Rodgers did yesterday. The context of the game (down four points, twelve seconds remaining, first down) dictated a spike and so did the Packers’ body language. Instead of spiking it, Rodgers made a vague spiking motion and then quickly threw the ball to receiver Davante Adams who ran the ball about ten yards before being pushed out of bounds. The Packers went on to score a touchdown and win the game, partially because of this play. So why don’t more teams do this? There’s real risk in trying it. If Adams had been tackled in bounds, instead of getting out of bounds, the game would probably have ended without the Packers getting another play. It’s far safer to spike the ball and then use the remaining ten seconds to throw the ball into the end-zone where the only possibilities are a touchdown (Packers win), an incomplete pass (clock stops, they get another chance as long as there’s time remaining), and an interception (Dolphins win.) The Packers would probably have had two or three chances if they chose the safe route.

As an added bonus, the most famous fake spike ever was executed by the most famous Miami Dolphin ever, Dan Marino. His fake spike resulted in a touchdown and victory over the New York Jets in 1994. When Rodgers pulled the fake spike yesterday, the announcers pointed out that, by doing it in Miami, he was almost performing an homage to Marino. I doubt Rodgers himself was thinking about that during the game yesterday. In fact, it came out after the game that the receiver who caught it had no idea it was coming.

The fake spike is a big deal because it happens rarely but when it does, it often is pivotal to the result of the game. It’s also enjoyable because it’s one of the ultimate chutzpah moves in sports. A quarterback who fakes a spike is taking all of football’s conventions and breaking them to trick their way to a win.

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

Week 6 NFL One Liners

On Mondays during in the fall, the conversation is so dominated by NFL football that the expression “Monday morning quarterback” has entered the vernacular. The phrase is defined by Google as “a person who passes judgment on and criticizes something after the event.” With the popularity of fantasy football, we now have Monday morning quarterbacks talking about football from two different perspectives. We want you to be able to participate in this great tradition, so all fall we’ll be running NFL One Liners on Monday. Use these tiny synopses throughout the day:

Week 6

Sunday, October 12, at 1:00 p.m. ET

New England Patriots 37, at Buffalo Bills 22

Tom Brady and the Patriots are red-hot after a slow start to the season. The Bills, as is often the case, are fading to blue after a hot start of their own.
Line: One day the Bills will be better than the Patriots, one day.

Baltimore Ravens 48, at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 17

The wisdom about professional sports teams is that even the most lopsided matchup between teams should be relatively even. That doesn’t seem to be the case this year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who flip wildly from horrible to mediocre and back.
Line: I am so glad I’m not a Tampa Bay fan. [Conversely, if you are a Tampa Bay fan, just say “ouch.”]

Pittsburgh Steelers 10, at Cleveland Browns 31

This game has traditionally been like the Patriots versus the Bills — one team always wins and one team always loses. Today, the order of things flipped for the Browns and the Steelers, much to the delight of Cleveland fans.
Line: Cleveland is for real!

Carolina Panthers 37, at Cincinnati Bengals 37

What? A tie?! Ties are really, really unusual in the NFL. They happen so rarely that sometimes even some of the players don’t think they are possible and expect that the game will just keep going.
Line: How crazy is a tie? Crazy, that’s how.

Denver Broncos 31, at New York Jets 17

The Jets played so much better than anyone reasonably thought they would. And they still lost by 14 points.
Line: The Jets could play the Broncos ten times and lose all ten.

Detroit Lions 17, at Minnesota Vikings 3

At the start of the day, one could have argued that all four teams in the Lions’ and Viking’s division had realistic shots to win it. That’s no longer the case, not because the Vikings lost, but because they looked so helpless doing it.
Line: It’s October and the Vikings’ season looks over already.

Green Bay Packers 27, at Miami Dolphins 24

Miami has a sneakily effective home field advantage. Teams from the north just don’t seem ready to play in the heat. Green Bay is better at football but Miami is better at running around in the sun and heat. Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers had to pull a little magic to get his team over the hump.
Line: The Packers were in a tight spot but Aaron Rodgers pulled it out.

Jacksonville Jaguars 14, at Tennessee Titans 16

This game was all about expectations. The Jaguars are winless and were expected to be bad. The Titans were supposed to be kinda good. So, even though the Titans won, it’s easier to see positives for the Jaguars than the Titans after this game.
Line: Sure, the Titans won, but I think the Jaguars fans are happier.

SUNDAY, October 12, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET

San Diego Chargers 31, at Oakland Raiders 28

The same could be said of this game. No one expected the Raiders to play the Chargers as well as they did but they did… and then they lost.
Line: Chargers Quarterback Phillip Rivers might be the MVP of the league so far.

Chicago Bears 27, at Atlanta Falcons 13

The Bears and Falcons are mirror images in many ways. Both have good quarterbacks, great wide receivers, and a shaky defense. Yesterday the difference between the teams was that the Bears could run the ball and the Falcons couldn’t.
Line: It’s a passing league but being able to run can still help a team win.

Dallas Cowboys 30, at Seattle Seahawks 23

This matchup lived up to its hype. The lead went back and forth and back and forth until finally the Cowboys had won against the defending champion Seahawks in Seattle where they almost never lose. It was a great game.
Line: If there were any doubts left about the Cowboys, they erased them, at least for now.

Washington Redskins 20, at Arizona Cardinals 30

The Cardinals starting quarterback had missed the last four games because one of the nerves in his throwing shoulder went “dead.” It came alive late last week and he jumped right into this game to kill, for once and all, the nerves of Washington fans. No need to be nervous anymore, their season is over.
Line: I think we can safely say that the Redskins season is a loss.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, AT 8:30 P.M. ET

New York Giants 0, at Philadelphia Eagles 27

Hasn’t it seemed like a disproportionate number of prime-time games have been blow outs? It seems that way to me. The Eagles jumped the Giants early by scoring fast and knocking Giants Quarterback Eli Manning down even faster. They never looked back except to chuckle at their struggling rivals.
Line: That wasn’t even fun to watch.