Lunatic Lateral
Infamous American football play in 2022
On December 18, 2022, the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL), who were playing the Las Vegas Raiders, attempted a lateral pass play at the end of regulation with the score tied at 24–24. However, the play failed as Raiders defender Chandler Jones intercepted the Patriots' second lateral pass and ran the ball in for a walk-off touchdown.
The play has been referred to as the Lunatic Lateral, the Las Vegas Lateral, Col-lateral Damage, the Hail Moron, the Vagary in Vegas, the Sin City Miracle, and the Flick Six by various media outlets. The play quickly became notable due to its unusual result and circumstances and having taken place just over four years after the Miracle in Miami, a successful lateral play (which the Patriots coincidentally also lost), though this play resulted in the opposite outcome. Several analysts criticized the team for attempting the play, which is normally attempted only when the team is trailing in the final seconds of a game and not with the game tied and have considered it one of the worst in NFL history. In addition, the blunder stood in stark contrast to the Patriots' success and disciplined play during the Brady–Belichick era, becoming emblematic of the team's struggles between quarterback Tom Brady's departure in 2020 and the hiring of Mike Vrabel as head coach in 2025.
Background
During the 2018 season, the Patriots had fallen victim to a successful lateral pass play by the Miami Dolphins, who scored a last-minute game-winning touchdown off the hook-and-ladder play to win in week 14 of that year. Despite that loss, New England eventually went on to win Super Bowl LIII, their sixth and final championship win during the Brady–Belichick era. This Patriots–Raiders game coincidentally occurred just over four years after the date of the Miracle in Miami. Additionally, this was the first time the Patriots played against the Raiders while their former long-time offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was the Raiders' head coach.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q115902144. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2022, 2020, 2025 and 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lunatic Lateral” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.