Flag football trick plays: the reverse and the throwback

The rule that decides which trick plays you can run

Flag football is American football with the contact taken out, and that changes the trick-play book more than most coaches expect. The NFL FLAG playing rules allow direct handoffs, pitches and laterals behind the line of scrimmage only. Once the ball carrier crosses the line, they are the only player who may have the ball until the play is dead. So the hook-and-lateral, the hook-and-ladder and every other play built on a pitch downfield is not a trick play in flag. It is a dead ball at the spot of the lateral.

What the rules do allow is generous, and every legal trick play is built from it:

• Unlimited handoffs and backward passes behind the line. A reverse, a double reverse and a pitch back to the quarterback are all legal.
• Anyone who receives a handoff, pitch or lateral may throw the one forward pass, as long as it is thrown from behind the line and crosses it.
• The quarterback becomes a receiver once the ball has been handed off, pitched or lateraled. Without that, the quarterback may never run the ball across the line.
• No blocking and no screening, ever. A trick play cannot rely on a team-mate getting in a defender's way. Receivers clear space by running routes that take defenders with them.

Two more rules to know. Once there has been a handoff, pitch or backward pass, the seven-second pass clock is gone and every defender may rush, not only the designated rushers starting seven yards back. And inside a no-run zone, five yards before midfield and before the end zone, only a pass play is allowed, so both plays below are for the open field. Draw them on the flag football play designer, which sets up five-on-five for you.

Trick play one: the reverse

The defence in flag reads the first movement of the play, because pulling a flag is a race to the ball. A reverse punishes that. The slot runs across behind the quarterback and takes a handoff going left. Every defender flows left with him. Then he hands it on to the left receiver coming back the other way, and the play goes right, into the space the defence has just emptied.

Both handoffs happen behind the line of scrimmage, so the play is legal under the NFL FLAG rules. The right receiver runs a deep route to take the cornerback away from the sideline, because he is not allowed to block for the runner. That clear-out route is the part young players skip, and without it the reverse runs into the one defender who did not bite.

Teach the exchange before you teach the play. A handoff that hits the ground behind the line is a dead ball where it lands, and on a reverse that is a long way back.

Trick play two: the throwback to the quarterback

The quarterback is the one player the defence stops watching the moment he lets go of the ball. In this play he pitches it back to the slot, who has stepped behind the line, and then releases across the field as a receiver himself. The defence, now free to rush, chases the slot. The slot throws the forward pass back across the field to the quarterback.

Two details make it legal. The pitch to the slot must go backwards, or level, because a forward toss behind the line is a forward pass and you only get one. And the slot's throw has to leave his hand before he crosses the line of scrimmage.

The deep routes on both sides matter here too. They take the cornerbacks and the safety deep and wide, so the quarterback's route underneath has nobody in it.

When to run them

A trick play works once a game, and only after the defence has seen the play it imitates. Run the reverse after two plays to the slot going left. Run the throwback after the defence has started rushing the backward pitch hard. If you have not yet built the plays these imitate, the guide to building a flag football playbook comes first.

Sending it to your players

Both plays are live. Open either in the American football play designer or start from the 5v5 spread template, change the names to your players, and send the link before practice. Put the reverse on the wristband once it is installed.