The Flicking of the Fleas

I was watching the NFL playoff games last weekend, because I am a virile American. I had no rooting interest in any of the teams, although I preferred two of the four, both of which predictably lost.

I am not going to chime in with my hot takes about why football is terrible, what with the traumatic brain injuries and enforced patriotism and institutionalized racism. Yes. I know. You can tell I follow football to some degree though, since I said "hot takes".

I am a little conflicted about the Jacksonville Jaguars being eliminated from the playoffs though—on one hand, they are historically really terrible and they have a quarterback named Blake Bortles, which sounds more like Bo Jangles than any other player in the NFL, so I really wanted them to win. On the other hand, now that they are eliminated, I don't have to hear the play-by-play guys saying jagWIRES any more, and that can only be good.

I did watch most of the Jacksonville - New England game, and I was very glad to see not one, but two instances of the best play in football. That's right, the Flea Flicker. Each team ran a flea flicker! For those not hip to the jargon, a flea flicker is when the quarterback hands the ball to a running back who fakes as if he is going to run through the line of large gentlemen, whereupon he turns and pitches the ball back to the quarterback, who then throws it to a hopefully wide open receiver.

I mean, check out this video of The Greatest Flea Flickers--the crowd loves the flea flicker. You can't argue with that.

If it were up to me, teams would call flea flickers when they were on the opposing team's 1 yard line.

Also I would be in favor of having a really tiny guy who you could sneak in, maybe in your helmet or your pants, and he could pop out at an opportune moment and sprint with the ball over the goal line. He would be so small that the other team would be terrified, as the ball seemingly moved by itself across the goal line. Of course, there's is a very real possiblity that any tiny guy in this situation would be killed by a gang of extremely large gentlemen, but that is a small price to pay for innovation.