A quarterback sneak is a play in Canadian

Canadian football

Canadian football is a form of gridiron football played exclusively in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed prolate spheroid ball into the opposing team's scoring area...

 and American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 in which the quarterback

Quarterback

Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...

, upon taking the center snap, dives ahead while the offensive line surges forward. It is usually only used in very short yardage situations.

The advantages of this play are that there are no further ball exchanges beyond the center snap, and that the quarterback receives the ball almost at the line of scrimmage

Line of scrimmage

In American and Canadian football a line of scrimmage is an imaginary transverse line beyond which a team cannot cross until the next play has begun...

 so that it is unlikely that significant yardage could be lost on the play. However, it is also very unlikely that the play will gain more than one or two yards. For this reason, it is almost solely used when the ball is very close to the goal-line or on third and fourth down with a yard or less to go. The origins of this play date back to 1912 where standout Yale

YALE

RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...

 quarterback Graham Winkelbaum first used it in a game against rival Harvard.

QB sneaks have drawbacks in that they tend to expose the quarterback to hits from opposing defensive backs.

Perhaps the most famous quarterback sneak in football history was executed by Bart Starr

Bart Starr

Bryan Bartlett "Bart" Starr is a former professional American football player and coach. Wearing #15, he was the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers from 1956 to 1971 and head coach from 1975 to 1983, compiling a record of 52–76–3 ....

 of the Green Bay Packers

Green Bay Packers

The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...

 in the famous "Ice Bowl

NFL Championship Game, 1967

The 1967 National Football League Championship Game between the Western Conference champion Green Bay Packers and the Eastern Conference champion Dallas Cowboys was the 35th championship game in NFL history. The game was held at Lambeau Field on December 31, 1967. The winner of the game was...

" NFL championship game against the Dallas Cowboys

Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...

 on December 31, 1967.

The play has also been favored by current Packers head coach Mike McCarthy, and QB Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Charles Rodgers is an American football quarterback for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League . Rodgers was selected in the first round of the 2005 NFL Draft by the Packers...

has made frequent use of sneaks, especially during the team's 2010 championship season.