Play of the game: Wide receiver trickery earns Lions their 1st TD vs. the Packers

Week 18 play of the game: Wide receiver trickery earns Lions their 1st TD vs. the Packers

With reports that Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn would be let go, head coach Dan Campbell decided to empty out the playbook in Detroit’s season finale.

The biggest play of the Lions 37-30 victory over the Green Bay Packers came on Detroit’s second drive on offense.

After forcing Green Bay to punt, the Lions were pinned deep in their own territory, starting the drive at their own seven-yard line.

On the first play of the drive, Detroit comes out with Will Holden as an extra lineman and Jamaal Williams took a handoff for just one yard. One play later, Jared Goff hit Amon-Ra St. Brown for 17 yards, giving them a first down at their 25-yard line.

This is where the magic happened.

Detroit Lions are up for their first-down play with an interesting choice in personnel. Tom Kennedy was the outside receiver on the left side. On the right side, tight end Brock Wright, wide receiver Josh Reynolds, and St. Brown are bunched together in trips. Wide receiver Kalif Raymond is in the backfield, seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, while Goff is under center.

The ball is snapped. Reynolds goes out for a five-yard slant. Wright drops back and gives right tackle Matt Nelson some help in pass protection. Raymond runs to the right side and Goff fakes the toss. At this point, Green Bay’s defense stalls out in confusion, attempting to diagnose what is about to happen.

Instead of tossing the ball to Raymond, Goff quickly hands the ball off to St. Brown, who looked like he was going to run a sweep with it. Instead, the rookie tosses the ball over to Kennedy, who throws it on the run 31 yards downfield and hits a wide-open Raymond in stride.

The speedster Raymond then took that pass down the sideline with ease and put Detroit’s first points on the board.