New England Patriots: Throwback to Tom Brady's incredible flea flicker from 2017

The New England Patriots’ flea flicker during the 2017 AFC Championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers was one of the great all-time plays in playoff history.

The New England Patriots teams of the 2000s and 2010s are a team that you would naturally associate with dominance, best exemplified by their 6 Super Bowl wins during those two decades, turning them into one of the most-storied franchises in the NFL more or less overnight despite having only ever reached two Super Bowls before that. 

And whilst there might be some accusations, which I’ll leave up to you to believe or not, that they came through some illegitimate means like SpyGate and DeflateGame to name just two, you can’t deny that there were also some moments that were just simply impressive to watch. 

One of those came in the form of the flea flicker that they pulled off during the 2017 playoffs. 

Anybody who has watched the 2009 film The Blindside with Sandra Bullock will know what a flea flicker is, but for those who haven’t, a flea flicker is a trick play, in which the quarterback hands off to the running back, who as he approaches the line of scrimmage, turns back around, tosses it back to the quarterback, who throws it downfield for the, hopefully, wide open receiver. 

The play relies on a lot of things going right, including the defence biting on the run at the start of the play, allowing defenders to creep up and let a wide receiver go down the field untouched, but also on there being nothing stopping the running back from getting to the line and tossing it back. 

That’s why it can be one of the trickiest of trick plays to pull off, even though on paper it’s relatively simple, and why calling it in such a big moment as the AFC Championship game is