The History of the Hail Mary in Football

Every football fan knows the feeling. The clock is under ten seconds, your team is down by a score, and the quarterback drops back and just launches it into the stratosphere. You hold your breath. The crowd holds its breath. Even the people who aren't paying attention suddenly are. That play has a name, and the story behind that name is one of the best in all of sports.

So why is it called a Hail Mary in football? The short answer is Roger Staubach, a devout Catholic quarterback, and a desperate prayer thrown 50 yards into a freezing Minnesota sky in 1975. The long answer is a lot more interesting.

What Is a Hail Mary Pass?

A Hail Mary is a long, desperation pass thrown at the end of a game, usually from midfield or beyond, into a crowd of receivers and defenders near the end zone. There's no sophisticated route tree, no nuanced reads. The quarterback heaves it as far as he can and prays someone on his team comes down with it.

The odds are brutal. Between 1975 and 2020, only 33 Hail Mary passes were successfully completed in the NFL over a 45-year stretch. You're essentially asking for a miracle every time you call it. Which is exactly the point.

Why Is It Called a Hail Mary in Football?

The phrase was born on December 28, 1975, in Bloomington, Minnesota. The Dallas Cowboys were visiting the Minnesota Vikings in an NFC Divisional Playoff game at Metropolitan Stadium. It was 25 degrees outside, 17 with the wind chill, and Minnesota had no roof on their stadium. Classic home field advantage stuff.

The Vikings, the heavy favorites, led 14-10 with 32 seconds left. Dallas had the ball at the 50-yard line and no timeouts. Their season was essentially over. Coach Tom Landry was blunt about their options after the game, saying their only hope was to throw it and pray for a miracle.

Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, lined up in the shotgun, took the snap, looked off the free safety, and let go of a high, arcing bomb toward the right sideline. Wide receiver Drew Pearson caught it at the Vikings' 5-yard line and walked backward into the end zone. Dallas 17, Minnesota 14. Game over.

What happened next is why we're still talking about this. Staubach walked into the post-game press conference and told reporters, "I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary." He later added: "I just threw it up there as far as I could. It was a play you hit one in a hundred times if you're lucky."

That quote landed in the Philadelphia Daily News and the Miami News the next morning. The phrase stuck. A prayer, a football, and a Catholic quarterback had just permanently changed the American sports vocabulary.

But Was Staubach the First?

This is where it gets interesting. Staubach popularized the term, but he did not invent it. The actual origin goes back to college football in 1922.

Notre Dame was playing Georgia Tech, and before each of their touchdowns, the Fighting Irish players said a Hail Mary prayer together in the huddle. It worked both times, and lineman Noble Kizer reportedly declared that the Hail Mary was the best play they had. Notre Dame coach Elmer Layden, who played in that game, referenced it again in 1935.

So the phrase had floated around Catholic football culture for decades before Staubach brought it national. He just happened to say it on a big enough stage that the whole country heard it.

How the Phrase Went Everywhere

After Staubach's press conference, sports media took over. ESPN anchor Chris Berman started using it regularly on SportsCenter throughout the 1980s. Berman said it plainly: it was just a funny, vivid way to describe how someone was throwing. And once ESPN was saying it every week, it was everywhere.

The phrase eventually escaped football entirely. You hear it in business, politics, law, and casual conversation whenever someone is taking a long shot with little chance of success. It even showed up in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, where a professor warns students not to fall below the Mendoza Line on their grades... wait, wrong phrase. He warns them not to fall below passing. Anyway, you get the point. It is fully mainstream.

The Most Famous Hail Mary Moments in Football History

The 1975 Cowboys-Vikings play started it all, but plenty of others have added to the legend.

A few of these deserve their own moment:

Hail Flutie (1984): Doug Flutie was 5-foot-9 and playing for Boston College against defending national champion Miami. His team trailed 45-41 with six seconds left. Flutie scrambled back 15 yards to escape pressure, stepped up, and launched it 63 yards through the air. Gerard Phelan caught it in the end zone. Final score: 47-45. It is arguably the most famous play in college football history and is widely credited with winning Flutie the Heisman Trophy that year. A statue of Flutie in his throwing pose now stands outside Alumni Stadium at Boston College.

The Miracle in Motown (2015): Aaron Rodgers is the greatest Hail Mary quarterback of all time, and this was his finest moment. The Packers were trailing the Lions and a facemask penalty gave Green Bay one extra untimed down. Rodgers evaded three pass rushers for eight full seconds, scrambled right, and threw a 61-yard strike to tight end Richard Rodgers. It is the longest game-winning Hail Mary in NFL history at 69 yards total distance. Rodgers completed three separate Hail Mary touchdowns within a 13-month span, which is insane and probably will never happen again.

Hail Maryland (2024): Rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels scrambled for nearly 13 seconds, which NextGen Stats confirmed was the longest scramble before a Hail Mary since tracking began in 2016, before connecting with Noah Brown on a 52-yard walk-off touchdown to beat the Bears 18-15. The internet had the nickname ready within minutes.

The Fail Mary (2012)

No list of memorable Hail Marys is complete without the most controversial one. During the 2012 NFL referee lockout, replacement officials were running games while the league and the regular refs negotiated. In a Monday night game between the Seahawks and Packers, Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson heaved a ball into the end zone with seconds left. Green Bay safety M.D. Jennings appeared to intercept it cleanly. But Seattle receiver Golden Tate fought for the ball on the way down, and after an agonizing review, the touchdown stood. The Packers lost 14-12. The backlash was so severe that the NFL and the real referees had a deal done by the end of the week.

The Fail Mary did not produce a legitimate catch, but it absolutely produced a nickname.

What Makes a Hail Mary Different From Other Deep Passes?

This distinction matters. Not every bomb thrown with time running out qualifies. A true Hail Mary is thrown into a crowd, not at a specific open receiver. There's no designed route, no real coverage read from the quarterback. It's everyone streaking to the end zone and the offense trying to out-jump the defense for a jump ball.

That chaos is what makes it so hard to defend and so hard to complete. You're essentially playing the lottery, except occasionally someone like Aaron Rodgers wins three times in a row.

If you want more NFL history and big-game lore, check out our breakdown of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history or our look at what NFL teams have never won a Super Bowl. And for the full documented history of completed Hail Mary passes across football, Wikipedia keeps an exhaustive running list that is worth a look. The full story of the original 1975 play, including both sides of it, is also covered in detail by History.com.

Fifty years on, the Hail Mary remains the most dramatic play in football. No other sport has an equivalent. Basketball has buzzer beaters, baseball has walk-off home runs, but nothing carries the combination of pure chaos and desperate hope quite like watching a quarterback close his eyes and let it fly.