Chiefs beat Chargers with same play from last year

[Hammock Parties]

loser franchise

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...11/?cid=fmiatw

“Funny thing is,” Kelce told me 40 minutes after the game, “we ran the same play to win this game last year.”

Whoa. Wait. The same play?

“Ironic,” Kelce said over the din of a euphoric post-game scene.

Let’s see. After I hung up with Kelce, I hustled to YouTube to find the highlights from Kansas City’s overtime walkoff win over the Chargers last year in California. I looked at the Next Gen Stats “dot” rendition of the play.

Dec. 16. Night game. National TV. SoFi. Tied at 28. Overtime. Kelce caught a shallow crossing route from Patrick Mahomes, running right to left across the formation, took advantage of wideout Byron Pringle muddling the middle of the field with a short route just in front of Kelce. Kelce ran upfield for the winning 34-yard TD.



Two slight differences: Coach Andy Reid dressed up this version with some motion—Watson, running to the left pre-snap—that wasn’t in the play last year. And Kelce broke off his free run last year and cut straight upfield to score. This year, Kelce kept running in-stride after making the catch, because there was a great path to the end zone.

Two games, same foe, same stadium, same end-of-game scenario, and Kansas City dialed up the same play. It worked with the same receiver in both games. It won both games.

Last week, in Kansas City, when the offensive staff was installing this crossing route for Kelce, Reid said, “Hard to stop that play.”

And isn’t that one of the open secrets of this Kansas City franchise, with Reid at the helm in his 10th season? Reid and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy design plays for great players like Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, and they don’t care if they’ve run the plays twice or 20 times already this season. Hard to stop that play. Sunday night, one of the best safeties in football, Derwin James, chased Kelce futilely across the formation and couldn’t catch him, and Kelce scored fairly easily.

It’s crazy to think Reid dared to call the same play to try to beat the same team 11 months after first calling it, and that it worked so easily. Again. Reid knew what he was calling. He knew it won the Thursday night game last December. He knew it’d win this game too.

Kansas City went 75 yards in 75 seconds, culminating in the winning TD. I asked Kelce why it worked so flawlessly.

“Patrick Mahomes,” he said. “What the people don’t know is we had personnel issues on that series because of injuries we had during the game. Patrick’s the one with the keys to the car. He knows exactly where to go with the ball.”