Colt McCoy on a quarterback keeper vs Rice - 2006-09-16

A quarterback keeper or keeper in

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

is a designed play in which the

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

does not pass or hand off the ball to another player and instead rushes forward with it in an effort to gain yardage. The play typically is run in instances where only a few yards are needed to gain a first down or

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Americ ...

, due to the threat of injury to the quarterback and most quarterbacks' ineffectiveness at running the ball when compared with a

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball, and block. The ...

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

; however, this play is called more often with dual-threat quarterbacks. Variations include a bootleg, quarterback sneak, quarterback sweep or quarterback " power". This play differs from a quarterback scramble in that a scramble is an improvised play, while the keeper is a designed running play.

References

External links

Definition of a quarterback keeper
definitions of running plays
Youtube video of a successful quarterback keeper
{{Gridiron football plays American football terminology American football plays