The Kansas City Chiefs could revisit their signature play from Super Bowl LIV during the upcoming season.
The now-iconic play, “2-3 Jet Chip Wasp,” occurred on third-and-15 with just over seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. During the play, Tyreek Hill catches the pass delivered by Mahomes for a 44-yard reception. This moment helped mount the comeback victory by the Chiefs when they were still down to the San Francisco 49ers by 10 points.
The play will live on in infamy among fans in Kansas City, but will the Super Bowl be the last time they see the Chiefs run this play? There’s evidence to suggest that it could be revisited by the team during the upcoming season.
First of all, Mahomes and Hill are still practicing the play vs. air at training camp. Take a look:
This looks awfully familiar 🤔 pic.twitter.com/MmOZcyPhha
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) August 11, 2020
The video from training camp isn’t the only thing that suggests the team could use this play again. Mahomes joined Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe on FS1’s “Undisputed” on Wednesday morning. He spoke about the signature play, walking fans through the moment.
“Yeah, when the ball left my hand I knew it was going to be caught,” Mahomes said. “I mean Tyreek [Hill] got wide open on the route. I know you [Skip Bayless] describe it as a punt sometimes, but I’ll take that punt 100-of-100 times if the ball’s hitting for a completion like that.
“It was a good play that we designed for their defense that we had kind of ran vs. the Chargers a little bit,” Mahomes continued. “[They] play a similar type of defense. I asked Coach Reid if we could call that play in that situation. He called it. I mean he has trust in me to call plays like that. We ran it. Tyreek got wide open. Sammy [Watkins] did a good job holding that corner on the backside. Then all of a sudden, we threw it and got some momentum in our favor and everything started snowballing after that. We were able to go out there and find a way to win the Super Bowl.”
Then Mahomes was asked about the design of the play and the routes ran, that’s where things start to get interesting.
“We actually run a play off of this where we have Tyreek run straight down the middle of the field and I usually throw it up there,” Mahomes explained. “I think you saw it in the preseason when I threw it to Tyreek vs. the Falcons about two years ago, where I just chucked it super far. Him having that speed, he threatens that safety, he runs at him like he’s going to cross his face. Right when he gets [the safeties] hips to flip, he breaks it out to the left side over there. We have Sammy as our second read, he’s the Dagger route. Then [Travis] Kelce’s running like almost a stutter over across the field. We have a lot of different options with a lot of our best players down the field. Third-and-15 you want to give guys a chance and I just try to buy enough time, the O-Line gave me time, and I threw it up to Tyreek and he made a play.”
Now that people will be paying more attention to Hill on this play, if the Chiefs run it again it could open up opportunities for the second and third reads, in Watkins and Kelce. But it’s not just about running the same play again. As Sharpe brought up to Mahomes, the Chiefs have plays with subtle differences that they can run out of the same alignment. Those plays will exploit defenses who prepare to defend against “Wasp.”
“You said it exactly right,” Mahomes told Sharpe. “I think the biggest thing you see when you have Coach Reid’s offense, he’s always making a play that he’s used weeks before and he uses a play to go off of that. I’m sure Jimmie Ward saw that same play that you saw and he was trying to open up to get out there knowing Tyreek, how fast he is…”
So when you see the Chiefs run “Wasp” in 2020, the end result might not be the exact same. Mahomes could go to a different target or there could be a different route combination used to fool opposing defenses. One thing is for certain, Super Bowl LIV won’t be the last time you see the “Wasp” or some version of it in Kansas City.
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