If you watch a football game, something that will happen a few times is an offensive play called play action or a play action pass. If you're watching the game on TV, you'll undoubtedly hear the announcers at some point mention this play action play. It sounds complicated, but it's actually quite simple. Play action is something that the offensive team will do on a passing play and attempt to throw off the defense. And how they will do that is to fake a handoff. And that's really all it is. Play action is just another term for a fake handoff before the team passes or at least attempts to pass the ball. So the quarterback will receive the snap from the center. He will turn around as if it is a running play. The running back will move forward and fake receiving the handoff from the quarterback who will instead hang on to the ball and then make that pass attempt to his wide receiver down the field. The reason the offensive team is doing this is to throw the defense off for just a half a second. Because if the defensive backs see the handoff, they'll likely abandon whoever they are covering and instead run up and try to tackle the running back. But with the play action, half a second is all the offensive need to get that wide receiver a little space he needs to make the catch.