pull the football

English

Alternative forms

  • pull the football away
  • yank the football

Etymology

From a running gag in the American comic strip Peanuts by Charles Schulz. Typically, Lucy Van Pelt holds a football for Charlie Brown to kick, only to pull it away and cause him to fall over. The gag first appeared in the November 14, 1951 comic.

Verb

pull the football (third-person singular simple present pulls the football, present participle pulling the football, simple past and past participle pulled the football)

  1. (US, colloquial) To appear to make someone a promising offer, only to withdraw it to the detriment of the other party.
    • 2013 February 10, Shea-Taylor, quotee, “Pulling the football on the push for gay rights”, in The Sun Chronicle‎[1]:
      [see title]
    • 2022, Erik Loomis, “Review: Latin America and the Radical Left: Reconsidering Transnational Solidarity”, in New Labor Forum‎[2], volume 29, number 2, pages 109-112:
      Instead, they took the deportation and pulled the football away on doing anything to keep immigrants in this nation.
    • 2023 April 24, Ross Brady, quotee, “New Assembly maps head to state legislature with few changes to current lines”, in Queens Daily Eagle‎[3]:
      But in several instances, in several places, I think we kind of pulled the football away, to use an analogy, from groups such as Southeast Asians in Queens
    • 2025 April 9, Rich McCormick, quotee, “Johnson punts on key budget blueprint vote as GOP holdouts seek concessions on spending cuts”, in CNN‎[4]:
      “If you keep on pulling the football from when I’m kicking, eventually you’re going to get a little wary,” McCormick told CNN of his hesitation to get in line again.
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