The screen pass, a staple of the Green Bay Packers' offense, is designed to foil onrushing defenders.
Deception is the key.
The play begins with the quarterback dropping back as if to throw a conventional pass. As he backpedals, seemingly under duress from defensive pressure, some of his blocking linemen abandon their position to run to one side of the field or the other, where they establish a new wall of blocking. At the last possible moment, the quarterback passes the ball to a back or receiver who is waiting behind the repositioned wall of blockers. Bob Zuppke, who coached Red Grange at the University of Illinois, is credited by some with inventing the play in 1906, but it wasn't until the 1940s that it was popularized by former Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown, according to Joe Horrigan, the curator of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Marion Motley, the fullback, stayed in to block on one side.