Only Serious Sports Fans Know All Of These NFL Slang Terms

It's not the fanciest play in football, but the tush push gets the job done. Called in short-yardage situations, the scheme involves quickly hiking the ball to the quarterback and having his teammates behind him shove him forward.

Well, the name "slobberknocker" pretty much says it all. This is when a tackle is so vicious that huge globs of saliva fly out of the victim's mouth upon contact.

Punters deserve some cool lingo too! The coffin corner refers to the space between the goal line and the five-yard line that is the ideal spot for a punt to end up. Basically, if the punter can pinpoint this area of the field, the opposition's next offensive drive is as challenging as it gets — and by implication, as good as dead.

Can you think of an NFL player who, no matter how badly things look on the scoreboard, refuses to give up? That type of athlete, who often finds a way to pull success from the jaws of defeat, has that dog in him.

A huge battle on the gridiron can come down to a chip-shot field goal in the final seconds. It's the type of kick that a quality player would make 99 times out of 100, but the other team has one way to tilt the odds in their favor. They play some mind games.

Get your mind out of the gutter for this one. Okay, you can laugh a little if you want. But the hump move is something to behold. It involves a defensive rusher going up against an offensive lineman who's actively shifting.

This is one of the more patriotic trick plays in the game. It involves the quarterback making a quick behind-the-back handoff to a running back while faking a pass at the same time.

Though this one might sound like an insult, it actually describes a very useful type of player. A scat back is an especially quick and elusive runner, who is often on the shorter side.

How would you feel if your fairly successful NFL career was overshadowed by one nightmare play? Just ask Mark Sanchez. In a primetime Thanksgiving matchup, the New York Jets quarterback panicked and ran into his own offensive line with the ball.

This refers to an invaluable group of people on the field, though they aren't on either team. Chain gangs are the men and women responsible for moving the two yardage marker poles — connected by, you guessed it, a chain — following each play!

Football is not the prettiest sport. For every hunk like Jimmy Garoppolo, there are a dozen bruisers who look like they've just been through the meat grinder. That's why many football linemen are affectionately known as "big uglies."

Whenever something has -gate at the end, you know it's probably not good. In this case, Deflategate is the nickname for one of the more controversial moments in NFL history. In the middle of a 2014 playoff game, the New England Patriots allegedly sent an equipment manager to the bathroom with all the game balls to lower the air pressure.

Nope, nickels and dimes have nothing to do with loose change in football. Instead, these are particular defensive formations used to counter an effective passing attack. For the nickel, a defense subs out a linebacker and adds a fifth defensive back. A nickel refers to the five players, get it?

Oftentimes, animal words in football stand for really cool and flashy plays. But for quarterbacks, a "duck" is pretty much the exact opposite. Throwing a duck means that you're heaving up a weak pass that's wobbling like crazy and begging to be picked off.

Young NFL fans may only know Terry Bradshaw as a wacky commentator, but the Steelers legend was responsible for perhaps the most iconic touchdown pass in the history of football. In the final seconds of a 1972 playoff matchup, Pittsburgh needed one more score but found themselves 60 yards from the goal line.

Alligators are scary in many ways, but their stubby limbs aren't exactly their most impressive feature. They're kind of like the modern-day versions of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. So when a receiver is accused of having alligator arms, it's far from a compliment.

In a scheme with three linebackers, these players are commonly referred to as Mike, Sam, and Will. And that's not because the coaches are too busy to learn their actual names. Think about the first letter of each name.

Pronounced the same way as the the horned, woolly animal, YAC is an acronym for "yards after catch." Specifically, this is the yardage that a receiver picks up after he completes a pass and becomes a runner.

This trick play takes some time to develop, but it's quite a sight when executed successfully. A flea-flicker involves the quarterback handing off the ball to a back, who unexpectedly tosses the ball laterally to the quarterback. He then attempts a deep pass.

Sounds kind of like a hazing ritual that a college fraternity would use, right? Luckily, a naked bootleg isn't as explicit as it might sound. A conventional bootleg sees the quarterback run in the direction of either sideline, giving him the chance to either run or find a wide-open receiver.

Did you know there are spies in football? And we're not talking about teams secretly recording their opponents' signals, although that has happened. A spy is a defender responsible for keeping an eye on an offensive player in the backfield, usually the quarterback.

Some of the most brutal hits are the ones that players don't see coming. If someone gets ear-holed, it means that they got tackled from the side, right near the part of the helmet that has holes so the athletes can hear.

Just like playing with an actual wildcat, this strategy comes with some big risks. Rather than a typical play that sees the center hike the ball to the quarterback, the wildcat formation has him snap it directly to another player, perhaps a running back or even a second quarterback.

Some games are absolute blowouts that are decided way before the fourth quarter. But that doesn't mean the losing squad can't pad their stats against the opposing B-team.

Why spend a bunch of time drawing up fancy defensive schemes when you can just muscle your way through the o-line? That's where the bull rush comes in. If you know anything about its animal namesake, you can get a good idea of what this technique is all about.

You can never count out an underdog, even when the odds are completely stacked against them. They might lose 99 times out of 100. But eventually, one unheralded squad will pull off a stunning upset.

A typical kick in football tries to pin back the receiving team as far back as possible: ideally, inside their own ten-yard line. A pooch kick, on the other hand, takes a different approach. This strategy involves a kick that doesn't cover much yardage on the field, but goes sky-high.

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. So somebody who sits back and criticizes a team's choices a day after the fact is playing Monday-morning quarterback. This feedback is not too helpful most of the time.

If you're a quarterback attempting a deep pass, you'd better be careful of any ball-hawks on the other side. These are players, usually safeties or cornerbacks, who aren't just looking to cover a receiver.

How can there be such a thing as a downhill runner when football fields are perfectly level? Well, the term refers to how a running back tries to pick up yardage.