The playbook of Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid feels endless on offense with all the different variations. Patrick Mahomes often preaches his enjoyment of the dazzling trick plays to keep the defense off-balance.
During Sunday’s victory over the New England Patriots, Mahomes and the offense scored on a new, unique play to catch everyone by surprise. He spoke about it with reporters in his postgame press conference.
“That was sweet. We’ve been working on that play for a while. And so I’m glad that it worked,” said Mahomes. “It was a little dicey there for a second, but we got it in the endzone.”
The play happened late in the first quarter; set up near the goal line, Jerick McKinnon received a direct snap from center Creed Humphrey, faked a run to the left, and tossed the ball to Rashee Rice, who was moving back to the right.
The @Chiefs get creative in the red zone on this one!
Rashee Rice takes it in for the first TD of the game!
đź“ş: FOX pic.twitter.com/CaLi4o02bt
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) December 17, 2023
“That play was awesome,” Mahomes explained. “I mean, that’s a hard team to score on in the red zone. One of the best, and so to have a play like that, that we had worked on a long time and it worked was working perfectly for their scheme. And we execute at a high level.
“Coach (Andy) Reid believing that we can make it work and I will say that I was the one that said Joe (Thuney) should snap it. I will because I was like, That will mess him up the Creed (Humphrey) and Joe switch spots. And they kind of pushed to the line a little over, thinking that Creed was the center. So I didn’t make the play, but I did that part.”
There is no official name for the play yet, but it could quickly become a fixture in the playbook to run again in the red zone.