Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Andy Reid praises his team after their 31-0 shutout victory against the Las Vegas Raiders, saying all three phases — offense, defense, and special teams — contributed to the dominant Week 7 performance at Arrowhead Stadium. By Dominick Williams| Monty Davis
The Chiefs shut out the Raiders 31-0 on Sunday in what might have been the most dominant regular-season win of Andy Reid’s 27-year head-coaching career.
But scarier than the performance itself is this plainly obvious fact: This team is enjoying games again — as evidenced by the reopening of their tricktionary of sorts, a catalog of creative gadget plays that somehow actually work.
Before Patrick Mahomes arrived in 2016, Reid famously called one play “Hungry Pig Right,” giving defensive tackle Dontari Poe a rushing touchdown against the Raiders. Later that season, that same “Bloated Tebow” tossed a touchdown against the Broncos.
Once Mahomes took over, the creativity only grew.
The Chiefs ran “Rose Bowl Parade” in Super Bowl LIV. The next regular season, they “Caught-and-Released” with left tackle Eric Fisher, who scored to ice a win over the Ravens. Later, Mahomes faked out the Panthers as the “Ferrari” paced right before throwing a touchdown.
In January 2022, Travis Kelce threw a touchdown pass to Byron Pringle in a playoff game over the Steelers, and a year later, the Chiefs “Snow Globed” their way to a touchdown against the Raiders before it was wiped out by a holding penalty.
Plays such as these only tend to emerge when Kansas City’s vibes are good and the offense is humming, which is exactly what we saw on Sunday against the Raiders.
Tapping into his State Farm acting chops on fourth down while leading 7-0, Mahomes pretended to be frustrated with a Reid play-call before handing the ball off. After the game, the quarterback credited offensive coordinator Matt Nagy with the idea.
“I was like, ‘I’m going to use that as part of my acting to try and get the defense relaxed a little bit,’” Mahomes said. “We’ve still got to go get (the first down), and the offensive line did a great job of driving off the ball. And then Kareem (Hunt) in those situations is money.”
Later on the drive, at the goal line, Gardner Minshew checked in at quarterback with Mahomes lined up as a running back. Minshew took the snap and flipped it to a sweeping Rashee Rice, but Mike Caliendo, in the game for an injured Trey Smith, jumped early. It looked certain that Rice would have scored.
“Man, dude,” Mahomes said, disappointed about the penalty. “We had talked about through the week if I should do the cadence or if he (Gardner Minshew) should do the cadence and we decided I should. Obviously, we should have let him do it because it was going to be a walk-in touchdown and I wanted to get Gardner a touchdown man, especially against those guys.
“Sucks that we didn’t get to make it happen, but the creativity by the coaches of putting us in that situation where I’m the distraction and we’re giving the ball underneath — I watched it on film and it looked like it was going to be a walk-in. We’ll be better with the cadence the next time we do it.”
Asked about the two plays, Reid emphasized that while he enjoys humoring his players and assistants and their creativity, the Chiefs don’t run those plays unless they’ve been fully rehearsed.
“The guys enjoy those, and if they’re sound — that’s where I’ve got the 51% on the thing,” he said. “We practice them, and we feel like by the time we use them, they’re part of the offense. And so we normally can pull them off. We had the one fail on us down there.”
As it played out, Kansas City was in the end zone from a more traditional play two snaps later.
Don’t look now. These Chiefs are having fun again.