The All-22 game preview: Texans at Chiefs

NFL football is finally back on Thursday night. Here are some schemes to watch for when the Kansas City Chiefs host the Houston Texans.

When the Texans have the football

(Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)

We all know that the NFL is a copycat league. If you design something that works as a coach, before long everyone is going to be using your creativity.

In the 2019 AFC Championship Game, the New England Patriots traveled to Arrowhead Stadium and knocked off Mahomes and the Chiefs in an overtime thriller.

In overtime, the Patriots took possession of the football after winning the coin toss, and drove right down the field for the game-winning touchdown. But their drive required a number of third down conversions against the Chiefs’ defense.

Their secret? Stack formations.

Late in regulation, trailing by four, the Patriots turned to the stack alignment, allowing Tom Brady to find Julian Edelman:

Then in overtime, the Patriots needed to convert three different third-and-long situations. Each time a stack alignment was critical to moving the chains:

On the final such conversion, the Patriots have the Chiefs so worried about Edelman on crossers that they drop a safety down to rob that route. So Brady looks away from Edelman to Gronkowski running a quick in cut from the other side of the formation:

So what does this have to do with Thursday night? We’re getting there. See, Thursday night is a rematch of the Divisional Round, but that playoff meeting between the Chiefs and the Texans was a rematch of a regular season game from last year. Back in Week 6 these two teams squared off in Arrowhead Stadium, and the visiting Texans came away with a 31-24 victory.

What did the Texans do often, particularly late in that game, to create some crucial plays for Deshaun Watson and the Houston passing game?

Stack slot formations and rub concepts, similar to what the Patriots did in the AFC Championship game a few months prior. This first example allowed Watson to find DeAndre Hopkins out of a stack slot alignment with Will Fuller, enabling the Texans to convert a 4th and 1:

On this 2nd and 9 in the fourth quarter, the Chiefs run a zone coverage scheme. Houston uses another stack slot look, and it is the same route concept: Hopkins on the quick in cut, Fuller a bit deeper:

A few minutes later, the Texans used the same alignment, only this time they changed the routes. Hopkins runs the slant route while Fuller releases to the flat. Again, the Chiefs don’t have the routes covered up quickly enough. The cornerback sticks on the slant route from Hopkins and that creates space for Fuller in the flat before the safety rotates over:

Then finally, the fourth down conversion to seal the game. Watch how the formation and the route concept (slant/flat) creates a collision between defenders and frees Hopkins for the catch to ice the contest:

Kansas City just did not have an answer for these designs.

So what happened in the AFC Championship game between these two teams? Houston had the answer for the Chiefs’ defense, right?

If they did, they forgot it.

The Texans got on the board during their opening drive using a few different looks out of bunch formations, including the touchdown pass from Watson to Kenny Stills:

But after that touchdown, the Texans seemed to move away from condensed formations, stack slots and rub concepts. Then in the blink of an eye they were suddenly trailing, and turned to more spread and empty formations.

They might still have the answer. I’ll be curious to see if they remember it Thursday night.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2