Lies, Damned Lies, and Quarterback Sneaks

The quarterback sneak is among football's most iconic plays. Every fan worth their snow salt is familiar with Bart Starr sneaking behind Jerry Kramer in the waning moments of the Ice Bowl to send the Packers to the first Super Bowl. Yet, as Starr executed the play, the QB sneak is also among the game's simplest plays. The quarterback places his hands under center, takes the snap, and drives on one side of the center, looking to gain a yard or two. No handoffs. No fakes. Just a simple power play.

How did such a simple play come about, and who executed the first quarterback sneak? To answer these questions, I started by googling "Quarterback Sneak." I quickly landed on Wikipedia's Quarterback Sneak page, which included the following sentence:

The origins of this play date back to 1912 where standout Yale quarterback Graham Winkelbaum first used it in a game against rival Harvard.

If you were to google "Graham Winkelbaum," you would see that the same or similar sentence appears on fifty-plus other websites that regurgitate the Wiki information.

If someone updates the Quarterback Sneak Wiki page, the screenshot documents Winkelbaum’s position at the bottom of the second paragraph.

While I generally find Wikipedia accurate and valuable, the information about Winkelbaum seemed odd for two reasons. First, I knew few quarterbacks placed their hands under center to take a hand-to-hand snap until the unveiling of the Modern T formation in 1940. So if the quarterback sneak existed before the 1940s, it took a different form than the play Bart Starr executed.