Kansas City Chiefs Laddie Morse

Chiefs: Building a Touchdown, 9·22·19

LadnerMorse September 25, 2019 No Comments Gallery

Chiefs: Building a Touchdown, 9·22·19 – the Kansas City Chiefs keep scoring touchdowns, so I keep breaking them down. Of course, there was a time when the Chiefs didn’t have a passing TD… for a loooong time… but let’s not talk about that. Today’s touchdown focus is on the balletic hookup from Patrick Mahomes toss to Demarcus Robinson as he dashed out the side of the end zone. It took all of five plays, but let’s begin one play before that.

The Baltimore Ravens had already made it clear that they would go-for-it on 4th downs and even though they had missed on a 2-point conversion they were at it again at midfield on a 4th and 2 from the 47.

Short and sweet — for Chiefs fans — it’s a good example of the Defense doing their job well and forcing the Ravens QB Lamar Jackson to pitch the ball into the knees of his TE to avoid being tackled for a loss. Advantage Chiefs, from the Ravens 47 yard line.

Ravens head coach, John Harbaugh, had to know he was playing with fire at that point because his call to go-for-it on the 2-point conversion had failed, and his team was down by a point, 6-to-7.

Play One – For Chiefs fans, seeing a Patrick Mahomes led offense set up shop at the other team’s 47-yard line is like telling your kids they can open their gifts on Christmas eve, all of a sudden they know this is about to be the best Christmas ever. Having already scored once earlier in the second quarter, Mahomes sets up in the shotgun with 10:35 dangling from the clock. Ah, the 2nd quarter, it’s become the eye of the storm for the Chiefs offense in 2019, thus far.  However, this play was going nowhere fast and as Mahomes waits for the snap, RB Darrel Williams comes in motion and sets up off of his right shoulder and once the ball arrives to PMII he fakes a front handoff to Darrel and whips it to TE Travis Kelce at the line of scrimmage, who is immediately upended for no gain. What really happens here is that Blake Bell sets up as the right TE and Kelce is actually the left TE and while Bell clears out towards the sideline to block, Kelce crosses underneath for an inside screen, which is sniffed out immediately. 

In retrospect, it seems that Andy Reid is trying to send the message to defenses in the league, that you better beware of the inside screens we’ll be running to help opposing teams from just spreading out to cover the wide and deep parts of the field. By running a play, even though it failed, like this one, early, it helps set up other plays later.

 

Play Two – this play has become a bit of a Twitter legend because Patrick Mahomes reaction, within the broken play, is to go downfield and block for his wide receiver… but instead… he slides down to get out of the way. Good thing he did, I don’t think he’d have been any help otherwise.

Here’s a better shot of the whole play. It was supposed to be a pass in the left flat to rookie Mecole Hardman but the pass was tipped and Hardman makes the best of the situation by returning it for about a 14-yard gain down the opposite sideline then out of bounds.

It was the first play that I thought Hardman reminded me of Tyreek Hill… and he’s fast and quick… but not Hill fast and quick. I’m also happy Mahomes came away unscathed.

Play Three – With a 1st and 10 in his holster, Mahomes sets up in the Shotgun at the Ravens 33 yard line. He then fakes an inside handoff to RB LeSean McCoy who is headed to the left, while Mahomes looks down field, McCoy sets up shop in the left flatt where PMII hits him and he takes it upfield for an 8 yard gain. It’s worth noting that there have been no running plays in this series and it appears that reid is using short passes like he would running plays.

 

Play Four – From behind Center, Mahomes waits the snap, Mecole Hardman sets up on the right side but quickly crosses the backfield to the left side, turns around then heads back the other way when PMII times the snap and hands off to Hardman on a right end around play netting about 6 yards behind the blocking of Bell and Kelce. Every time I watch this play I think Hardman could have had 4 or 5 more yards if he had hit it hard up behind his blockers but instead, he heads out of bounds. A nice gain anyway, but could clearly have had more.

Play Five – before we delve into the last play of the drive, let’s review what Andy Reid has called so far on this trip to the end zone:

    1. An inside screen to Kelce
    2. A short pass to Hardman in the left flat which was tipped and he took it down the right sideline
    3. A pass to RB LeSean Mccoy in the left flat
    4. An end around the right side by Mecole Hardman for 6 or 7 yards.

With the ball on the Ravens 18-yard line and Patrick Mahomes in the Shotgun and RB Darrel Williams set up to his left, PMII takes the snap and fakes a handoff to Williams who is crossing Mahomes to his right. Williams stays on that side to help block someone who doesn’t need it while a free defender is taking a bee-line to Mahomes and it’s that pressure that makes him throw the ball off his front foot while moving away from the defender but PMII throws a perfect strike to the back left corner of the end zone where WR Demarcus Robinson makes a stupendous catch for the ages. I’ve heard is said that his catch will go up for “Catch of the Year” and I can see why.

One of the developed skills of a great wide receiver is getting comfortable with your own quarterback. Perhaps more important is having a quarterback get comfortable with you. This is the third year that Mahomes and Robinson have played together and it shows. Robinson has also conquered the double move and this play is a good example of that. Brandon Carr, Baltimore’s ex-Chiefs CB was shading Robinson to the inside and DRob sold the move to the inside so when he made his move to the corner, he was actually wide open.

If you were paying close attention to Patrick Mahomes face in this game, he showed more of frustration than I’ve seen him express before. Call it getting comfortable in his own skin or whatever you will but I didn’t see him pointing any of that angst towards DRob in this game. What appeared to get to PMII was when a receiver ran the wrong route and that’s become a strength of Robinson’s. 

In reflection, it’s funny how all the short stuff (play calls) was detected fairly well by the Ravens, but a longer pass like this seems to be out of the realm of their understanding about how to deal with it. Although, I’m not sure that any team — or CB — could deal with the execution of a play like that. The game announcers quoted Reid as saying, “Demarcus Robinson is a star in the making.” No doubt in my mind. Go Chiefs!

Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

 

 

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