The Hail Mary

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work marketplace. Empower your business and hire the world's most in demand developers, designers, project managers and more at www dot up work dot com. For lead for Buffalo, eleven seconds to play shuck up, Murray, Paddle the pocket seven seconds, six seconds Murray cholinsous, Oh Yes it was miraculous. No one better and We're actually really fortunate Iron Eagle was on the call, one of the good guys in the business who was just so on point on that play

by play. They're one of the most memorable moments from the season WEEKDN Cardinals Bills Kyler Murray connecting with the hop that last second touchdown to take out the Bills thirty two to thirty. Now the plays since been called the Hail Murray, but before that nickname was given to the play, it already had a name and went by the Hail Mary. It's going on, guys, I'm like yam and is always joined by Adit King Kabwalla. Hi, everybody,

I'm humped for this one. You should be pumped for this one because today we're gonna do a nice little deep dive on what could be the most exciting play

in football. It's NFL explained the Hail Mary now a d D. During our grab Bag episode, there were a couple of questions asked about football terminology, and we thought, you know, things like shotgun and flee flickering, But we felt like with the Hail Mary, we wanted to go all in on something that I know the two of us absolutely love to see the play that gets us all at the end of our seats, and then we

certainly go crazy when the past is actually completed. Well, even either way, Mike, Frankly, when the ball is in the air, you're sort of like, Okay, who's going to get better position and what's going to happen, Because look, at the end of the day, a hail mary also has a chance of being an interception, almost just as good of a chance of being an interception as it doesn't being caught, maybe a greater chance. And there are quite a few quarterbacks that don't want that interception, padding

their statue to some degree. So, especially when you see the hail mary at the end of the first half as opposed to the end of the game, that is rare. It takes me back. I mean, I was in Green Bay when Eli Manning at halftime heaves a ball up and you see all of these hands go up in the end zone and Hakim Knicks is huge mix because he had huge he had like a I don't know,

five xcel glove size. All of a sudden, Hakim Knicks's gloves are higher than everybody else's and he comes down with the ball in the momentum and the excitement and all of that. I'm all into it. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned the statistical standpoint. You know, I've talked to enough NBA players and college players to know a lot of times they don't like the full court heave or the half court shot. They'll do it when they know

the time is actually expired. They'll keep it close just so that they're not worried about that little miss affecting some of those statistics. But look, we've discussed at length a lot of the excitement for for Kickers and the whole thing add with our ice and the Kicker episode. But look, at the end of the day, bigger rush and then a quarterback who launches that ball. I would imagine to me that is really, in a lot of

ways the most exciting thing. But you and I need to get into sort of the history behind this actual moment. Let's start with where the name actually comes from. You were saying before we did the episode, why do we say shotgun? Why do we safely flicker? Well, why do we call it hail Mary? And that's because it is sort of this idea of to mind intervention, don't you think, Oh yes, yeah, It's actually based on some newspaper clippings

from nineteen twenty two from a college football game. Not surprising, Notre Dame actually a part of it. In Georgia Tech, the Hail Mary was not used once, actually twice in the huddle on fourth down the Hail Mary prayer was used. A player who played in the game is quoted as having said, in the huddle, boys, let's have a Hail Mary. Now. Look, I've done enough of the Catholic masses on Sundays not to mention Catholic school in my whole life to know

exactly all of this stuff. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the I'm actually having flashbacks now to Sister Bridget in elementary school. Needless to say, the prayer during the game game was answered because Elmer Laden converted on that fourth down a d D and scored a touchdown. Well, obviously this came from a Catholic school

like Notre Dame. I mean, you have seen the touchdown, Jesus right, Mike, Oh yes, But let me tell you this, it did take a little bit longer for the term to make its way into the modern day NFL vernacular. That didn't happen until nineteen divisional playoff game Cowboys Vikings Hall of Famer Roger Snowback famously throws a fifty yard touchdown pass for the lead to Drew Pierson with twenty

four seconds left on the clock. Well, the Cowboys native miracle Roger, He's going log down the near sideline for dru Haarrison. Harrison makes the catch at the five. Let's down. What's believe it? Stop Harrison on the yard touchdown. After the game, they asked what I was thinking. I said, I closed my eyes instead of hail Mary. The AP writer wrote the story that the hail mary pass won the game. The term hail mary started that moment in

the NFL. I'm kind of proud of that. Aaron Rodgers and a lot of people have thrown hail mary passes, but they didn't throw the hail Mary pass. The Cowboys then went on to win seventeen fourteen and advanced to the NFC Championship. You know what I love about that, Mike.

I was just with our colleague and our friend and Hall of Famer Kurt Warner the other night, and there's a new movie out on Kurt Warner's life, and he was saying, what's so fascinating about this is this generation of NFL players right now who sure they know that you know, Kurt's on TV, and they know that Kurt's in the Hall of Fame, but they don't really know

his actual story. And that Kurt was saying is because your legacy as a player in the NFL is somewhat finite, right And when we get to our records episode, we'll talk about that. But what Stalbach is saying here is why he is so proud of this is because that term lives on forever. I mean, no matter what, he has made an indelible change on the game, We're never going to call that anything other than the Hail Mary.

It's really cool because I actually saw some interviews that Drew Pierson, by the way, on NFL Network, just talking about those moments, and it's kind of cool to relive it. You hear the audio, but when you hear some of these players, like actually talking about that moment and Pierson talking about that moment, you can sort of see the emotion, hear it in their voice and see it on their face. But before we actually walk you down memory lane, as

some of the most memorable hail mary's. Ever, I think it's important to try to define what a hail mary is and then get into some of the statistics behind it. We reached out to stats LLC, who is our official stats provider for answers, and funny they actually don't have a hard definition for a hail mary. Instead, they said they rely on the eye test on film to determine which pass is actually qualified. Love that term eye test.

Some factors considered, including game situations like the position down the clock to score, and what actual play was called basically just verts, right, like just wide receivers running down the football field and getting it done and then hopefully delivering and the prayers are answered in that critical moment. Well, Mike, it really makes sense. I mean, if you put me on the spot and said, what is a hail mary?

I would think of it as a the final play or maybe two attempts at it, but the final play at the end of a half or the end of a game. It's got to be a big long throw. It can't be just this crazy lateral how many guys can touch the ball and I think that that's it. Yeah, clock end of the play, and it's got to be a deep path, and it's got to be a score

that you absolutely need. Now, Mike, this topic is a little bit hard to quantify, and really, actually technically they didn't start keeping hail Mary statistics until two thousand six, so let's primarily focus on the last fifteen years since those stats have been kept, except that maybe the most iconic hail Mary, not the first one, not the stob I one, but the most iconic one it was actually the Haill Flutie and that one happened before two thousand six,

and to be fair, it wasn't actually in an NFL game, but Flutie was an NFL quarterback, so you know there's a parallel there, Mike. You'll buy it right, Oh yeah, no, I'm I'm with you. Like any long bombs we can get, I'll take alright. Doug Flutie, Boston College. There's a sixty three yard touchdown to Gerard Phelan, the last second touchdown gives Boston College a win over the Miami Hurricanes, the

big bad Miami Hurricanes. And there are a lot of people, Mike that consider it one of the greatest sports plays of all time, in no small part because of who actually executed the past. Yeah, it looks in a lot of ways. It was really awesome. And Flutie, by the way, was actually pretty nasty in that game, and nasty in a good way. It's sort of look, I did a little Wikipedia search here, and I thought this was kind of like a cool little deal. Uh. He threw the

ball from his own thirty seven. Now, he certainly wasn't a prototypical perfect looking quarterback in terms of the size and the height. He's five tens, so kudos to him. I was like the shorter guys for obvious reasons. But the quarterback, so he throws the ball at least sixty three yards against thirty mile per hour wins. So this is like in a day and age where we weren't talking about next gen stats and Cynthia Freeland wasn't dropping like serious dimes on us. So to me, that was

kind of cool. And that was after he'd already thrown the ball a ton right forty five times in the game. Fluty finishes with four seventy two three touchdowns, with the third one being truly awesome. All right, but back to those metrics are research team in two thousand six. Since that time, there have been three hundred and fifty seven hail mary pass attempts in a game in the NFL,

including the playoffs. How about this, though it's kind of surprising, only thirty nine completions, so nearly one in nine get completed, with only a seven percent touchdown rate on the flip side. One in four of those gets intercepted. So if we want to do the statistical anal says, it's really important to know you're not throwing a hail mary unless you

abstually have to based off some of those numbers. Well, and that's what we were talking about earlier, right, I got the statistics wrong, obviously, But as I was saying, I do know of quarterbacks who are afraid to throw the past because they don't want to be picked off. And I also know once that are afraid to throw the past because then people will know whether they really can actually do it or not. I mean, we always knew that Joe Flacco had an arm, but not everybody

really necessarily has that arm. So, Mike, there are actually quarterbacks who've thrown a hail mary more than ten times in their career. And since you know I love quizzes, I'm going to make you guess, but no, no no, no, not yet, not yet. I'm giving you a chance to think about it. Okay, so you've got a few seconds right here, you m all over that which three quarterbacks have thrown a hail mary more than ten times in

their career. When we come back on the NFL, exclaimed, we will relive some of the greatest hail mary's and find out what future Hall of Famer has he yet to complete a hail mary of his own bucket lest item, We'll do our best to identify what quarterback could be considered the king of hail mary's. That and much more. Mike, when we returned to NFL explained, build the team that

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specific to five G networks. Your results may vary. Not an endorsement speed comparison to Media and Verizon four G LTE speeds downloads very based on network conditions and five G content optimization. Welcome back to NFL, explained Mike Yamma a d d kin kaballah with you. And before the break we said there were three quarterbacks who have thrown ten or more hal Mary's in their career. But before we get there, here's an interesting list of qbs who

have never completed a Hail Mary. And it's actually kind of surprising here. Derek Carr, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberg, you know, would have been kind of cool. Add because you were there a couple of weeks ago hines Field, big Ben's last game in front of that home crowd. Can you imagine if there was a hail Mary that he was able to check that off the list? I mean, that would have been incredible, sure, except that I think he passed for his average past

attempt that night was one two yards. It was like thirty some id passes in the first half of ninety six yards. The point is you get a win and he was celebrated, so a nice little bow on big Ben's career. Yes, And it was the most electric, amazing atmosphere, And it was sixty something thousand people lauding the person that has been their franchise quarterback for eighteen years, which is awesome. Eighteen years, one uniform, no hail mary's, but

plenty of other major statistical records. That he's got rock in that Pittsburgh Steelers uniform. But the most surprising of the bunch of that list of players who has never thrown a hail mary Tom Brady, and earlier this year, he actually told Aaron Andrews that a hail mary is still one of things that he wants to accomplish in his career. He's pretty much done everything, and since he's going to play for another twenty years adity, I'm sure he's going to be able to check off hail mary

on the box. I think you've heard me say this multiple times. Tom Brady is older than me, so I hope he played forever because as long as he plays, I can still feel somewhat young. In any case. Back to our top hail mary throwers. So I asked you to guess you've had some time to think about it. What three quarterbacks since two thousand six have attempted the

most hail mary's. Okay, there's one name that certainly comes to mind, and that's Aaron Rodgers because you actually kind of touched on it a little bit earlier in this podcast. Guys that have the arm strength to be able to do it. Rogers, I feel like he can just flick his wrist and that thing's going forty yards anyway. And then when there's actually like an attempt to throw the bomb, Rogers has got it. So on the list, I would

say Aaron Rodgers has to be in the top three. Well, ding, ding, ding, that is very good, and that one is a little bit obvious. But let me tell you who's not. Kirk Cousin has thrown ten and Andy Dalton has attempted. Now, both Andy Dalton and Aaron Rodgers have actually connected on three hail mary's, all of them for touchdowns. Cousins has only connected on one touchdown and he's thrown three picks. Now.

He has acknowledged that perhaps the technique needs a little bit of work, but he says his approach is very very specific, that basically his front shoulder better be tilted up and that his back shoulder better be down because it's not a regular pass. He says, my kids, I think how he described it was a moonshot where he wants the ball kind of arcing up and then coming down at the receiver's in the end zone. Here's another

crazy one. The highest career hail mary completion percentage. That's somebody who completed two of five, and that's somebody is Jamis Winston. Famous Jamis making an appearance on the pot on the Hail Mary edition Famous Chamis. So overall, since two thousand six, there have been one hundred and fifty six Hail Mary pass attempts to win or tie a game.

Seven were completed for a game telling touchdown. Of those seven touchdowns, three ultimately led to a win in regulation, the other four forced or time but didn't ultimately lead to a win. The three of those were completed for a game winning touchdown with no time remaining on the clock. And Rogers actually leads the entire group with the longest winning touchdown completion. So one hundred and fifty six Hail

Mary pass attempts since two thousand six. The longest one that was completed for a winning touchdown was by Aaron Rodgers and went for sixty one yards. Take a list of Mike Rogers in trouble. It's gonna get there. They turned thirty two yesterday. There's a half a vantage Promyn Rocher Rogers for the lack off touchsown. But Holy Packers, now, there is no way you can forget the miracle in Motown Week thirteen, Packers and Lines Rogers able to connect

with Richard Rogers for the walk off whim Addy. Kind of a cool connection here. Maybe some of our listeners of a certain age would remember this play. But the Stanford Cal game the play when the band is on the field. So Rogers's dad, Richard Rochards Senior, actually played for Cal in that particular game when the band was on the field. He actually handled two of the five

laterals to end that game. So for me, there must be something genetically in the Rogers name when it comes to Aaron Rodgers making a ton of hail Mary throws, Richard Rogers being on the receiving end of that, and then Richard Rogers Jr. Being on the receiving end of that past, and then Richard Rogers Sr. Playing in one of those iconic games. Just kind of a cool little factoid there, Sure, but I don't consider a crazy lateral

play a hail Mary. But anyway, since we did that one, I think it's important that we go through the other two game winning hail Mary touchdown. So the first one Week ten, two thousand ten, Jacksonville, Houston, David Gerard throws a fifty yard touchdown to Mike Thomas to beat Houston. And what actually happened was that the defender batted the ball into Mike Thomas's hand. I mean, Mike, I'll never forget the first Hail Mary that I was present for. It was to that and twelve. The Giants were at

the Packers. It was the NFC Divisional round, end of the first half, and Eli Manning keeps the ball down field into the end zone. You see all of these hands go up and then that one big, huge set of myths. Kim Nicks his gloves. He I don't even remember exactly, but I think he wore a size four xcel glove. His hands were so big they were above everybody else's. He trapped that pass from Manning against his face mask actually, and I remember he fell to the ground.

It was a touchdown. Everybody swarmed him, and the momentum

of that game completely changed. It was like they scored that touchdown, they go into the halftime break and you knew that the Giants had won the game, and we're going to go onto the NFC Championship game, and then of course they went on to the Super Bowl, and then of course they won the Super Bowl, and you know I remember that play, and then how can we forget when Aaron Rodgers was on the other side of the hail Mary or should I call it the fail Mary?

And I know we talked about this in an earlier episode two twelve, Week three. There's a referee lockout, so replacement refs are working the game. Russell Wilson hits Golden Tate for a twenty four yard touchdown. At the end of regulation. The refs made two different calls. One said touchdown, the other says time was expired. And listen to the confusion right here, Mike, the Packers playing at the goal

law as Wilton started to keep it along. The game's final play is it works and love to the m zode, which is takes simultaneous who hazard who they're going to Touchdowy Woy goes out touchdown. Over said, no, time has to be looked arts. It's a school store assisition. Throw there all off the pile. We must have a definitive call.

There was one touch that signal add Rogers always seemed to be in the mix for a hail Mary, one way or another, so it's only fitting that he can speak on the strategy of a Hail Mary and an

ESPN article in this is what he said. I've done all of those in practice, So even the Arizona throw, the Detroit throw, and this last one, I've done similar plays where we're moving the pocket slightly or not moving the pocket, or escaping and resetting the edge, and then you're throwing it as high as you can and trying to judge the trajectory and distance and then how hard

you're going to throw it. It's a matter of quick mathematical equation in your mind based on your field and your muscle memory, which speaks add to what Kirk Cousins was saying with the formatics of the throw, and what it also reminds me of Justin Tucker when you hit that sixty six yard field goal, that little hop step to try to get a little extra umph on that kick.

It's sort of the same thing in different position. But once again, just how some of these athletes are thinking in real time on the field, right and proving that playing football is not about just being a meathead. I mean, they're clearly doing physics on the fly. But you know, as we give these great quarterbacks all this shine let's talk about the receivers a little bit. Since two thousand six, Larry Fitzgerald and A. J. Green have the most targets

on Hail Mary's with five apiece. Now, Fitzgerald was indeed able to catch one of those, but Green A Cumnick so I mentioned earlier, and Richard Rodgers, who you also mentioned earlier, lead the way with to each And since we talked about Rogers earlier, let's take a listen to what he had to say after he caught that one against Detroit Basketball. You have a spot some point five points in junior year. At what point did you start to think like a basketball player saying I just got

to go up and get this rebound um in? Then start really, I'm supposed to be boxing out and DeVante is supposed to be the jumper. But once I saw it in the air, I realized I could get it, so I just went for a d D. It's a really good point, and I love that Rogers is saying it because kind of boxes out, leaps up and he's got that basketball background. But without those guys catching the ball,

you don't even have this episode of NFL explained. I think the one thing that I learned today is Aaron Rodgers might be the best at the hail mary throw. We didn't even mention his hail mary in the divisional game against the Cardinals. I don't know, is there a guy that you want to throw the ball to up in the air, last second, crucial moment in a game. M that's asking me right now, who's got the best hands?

You know what, I don't even know if it's about the best chance, since we're talking about the whole mathematical piece of it. I feel like Cooper Cup is always in the right place at the right time. I mean, this is a guy that I repeatedly watched just a couple of weeks ago beat double teams. Jamar Chase is fearless. He's another guy I would absolutely totally throw two. Um

who else? And then again, I'll go back to I mentioned Kim Nicks and being there when he caught one, just being able to, like Roger said, box somebody out and have bigger hands than anybody. That is a tough one. You're putting me on the spot and not even giving me a chance to really actively think about that. Yeah, I like it. You know you look you you like the quizzes on the show. I thought I could throw one your way, all right, So let me give you

one more. Let me give you one more. You know there is one more Aaron Rodgers hail Mary, and it's one that you forgot of. CoRIS is the two thousand seventeen Wild Card game when he threw a Hail Mary against the Giants at the end of the first half. And uh, I know you still bleed blue. Sometimes it's hard, so I apologize, but I think we should toss this one out the door on our way out, and everybody else as you listen to this call and as Mike wipes the way the tears listening to those calls, thank

you as always for joining us for a stuff. Rogers does this predator water and that's inexplicable as to how you allow any offensive players in front of you in a hell marry type situation. That was NFL explained Bill married. America's most reliable network is going Ultra with Verizon five G Ultra wide Band and more and more places with up to ten times faster speeds. You can download a movie in mere minutes. What Yes, Verizon is going Ultra so you can too. Five G ultra wide ban available

in select areas. Most reliable based on rankings from the Root Metrics US ROOT Score report dated first half excluding c ban and not specific to five G networks. Your results may vary. Not an endorsement speed comparison to Media Verizon four G LTE speeds, downloads vary based on network conditions and five G content optimization. Brought to you by upwork, where you can build the team that will build your business. Learn more at upwork dot com.