How one weirdly broken play made ‘swinging gate’ infamous in Washington

The Washington Commanders football franchise has been around since 1932. In that time, it has experienced plenty of weird moments, both on and off the field.

Any club owned by the mercurial showman George Preston Marshall — the P.T. Barnum of the early NFL — was bound to be involved in its share of oddities.

The strangest game came in the 1940 championship, when they suffered the biggest blowout in NFL history, falling 73-0 to the Chicago Bears. Five years later, there was the “sneakers game,” when they gave away a title in the spirit of fair play.

But if you’re looking for the single weirdest moment in Washington’s long football history, you don’t have to go back nearly that far. It was December of 2009. Say “swinging gate” to anyone who witnessed it, and you will get a laugh and a groan.

How Washington’s infamous “swinging gate” play came to pass

To understand the moment, a bit of context is required.

By 2007, owner Dan Snyder had been in charge for less than a decade but already had employed five head coaches. When franchise legend Joe Gibbs retired rather abruptly at the end of the 2007 season, he began looking for coach number six.

After many fits and starts, he settled on Jim Zorn.

Zorn had been hired as the new offensive coordinator less than a month earlier. He would have been his first play-calling gig, and he might have been qualified for the role. But as a head coach, he was woefully overmatched.

He lasted two seasons. Toward the end of his run, Washington entered a Week 15 home game against the rival New York Giants having lost seven of their previous nine contests.

Just before halftime, the Giants held a 24-0 lead, and the boos rained down on the field. But the home team had a chance to salvage a bit of respect when they got into field goal position with two seconds left in the half.

Then it happened.

Before the field goal snap, seven players shifted to the far left side of the field, leaving just four — the center, the holder, kicker, and a single receiver — alone in the middle. This is the “swinging gate,” a gadget play that rarely works in high school and never works at higher levels.

The idea is you take the defense by surprise. They aren’t prepared to identify and cover the players who have shifted. If either your holder or kicker has a good arm, he theoretically throws the ball to an uncovered receiver. Washington did have the right holder. Hunter Smith — a punter with a great arm. Zorn figured why settle for 24-3 when you could make it 24-7 at halftime.

The problem is that Giants coach Tom Coughlin saw the alignment and called a timeout.

If you could find 10 coaches with the audacity to call for this play in the first place, all of them would tell you that if the other coach calls time, you have to switch out of the play. The swinging gate has no chance without the element of surprise.

Zorn left the play on.

What happened next was predictably laughable. Three Giants, now prepared for the strange alignment, swarmed a helpless Smith, who flung the ball toward the end zone just before getting clobbered. The fluttering ball was intercepted by Bruce Johnson, who very nearly took it the distance for what would have made it 31-0 at the half.

As it was, it simply became the play that turned Washington into a national laughingstock and virtually ended Zorn’s career as a head coach.