Sequential play calling, corn dog, and happy anniversary from the Chief in the North

Celebrating Andy Reid's setup of the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII, and looking back at 3 years of the Chief in the North Newsletter.

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Three years ago today, I posted the very first “article” on the Chief in the North Newsletter.

There’s a reason the word “article” is in quotations marks, because that’s not really what it was. It was more a “coming soon” announcement that I was going to dive into the world of Substack and start bringing content directly to Chiefs fans’ inboxes. Feels like yesterday and like a decade ago. I want to talk about that in a moment.

But first, let’s talk about Andy Reid, sequential play calling, corn dog, and two of the most wide open touchdowns in Super Bowl history. This site, and you subscribers, are the reason I get to write about some pretty niche stuff, and I’ll never take it for granted.

There was some interesting discourse today that got me thinking about this topic (sequential play calling). The first was a genuinely wonderful interview by Kevin Clark and Steven Ruiz at The Ringer with 49ers tight end George Kittle. There were a ton of great snippets, and they talked about how Kyle Shanahan (widely regarded as one of the best play callers in the world) will utilize low-ceiling plays (for lack of a better term) to set up something better down the road.

That conversation led to some great follow up by others in the industry talking about how coaches are willing to sacrifice a little to gain a lot.

Brandon Thorn

of Trench Warfare (a terrific site to learn about OL/DL play) had his work cited talking about opening scripts and player-friendly schemes. You can find the whole article here, but here’s a great quote from it.

Another reason why keepers have been valuable for the 49ers offensive line, especially early in games, is that they provide opportunities to get a feel for the defense.

”Guys would play completely different against us than they would show on film the whole year,” Staley said. “So you’d have a chance early on with keepers to see how a guy would fit us on the frontside, see if that defensive end would play through the tight end on that frontside combination, come through my outside shoulder, or if he really is going to compress it outside on the tight end.”

This discussion on setting things up for later was expounded on further by The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen, one of the best in the business at studying film. Overall, it’s a fascinating topic, at least for weirdos like myself.

But what does it all mean in practice? Well, since we’re celebrating here at the CITN Newsletter today, I thought I’d provide a demonstration that Chiefs fans will feel personally. Two words, two touchdowns, one food; Corn dog.

Everyone knows what happened here. The Chiefs, trailing in Super Bowl LVII in the 4th quarter, were somehow able to scheme Kadarius Toney wide open for one of the easiest touchdowns you’ve ever seen. But how does that happen? How does an NFL defense get so thoroughly fooled in such a big moment?

Part of the answer is in scouting and understanding what teams’ tendencies are in terms of their switches/checks. But a massive part of it is also sequential play calling and being patient enough to set things up, both over the course of an entire game as well as an entire season.

Let’s take you back in the Super Bowl to a goal line series prior to Toney’s touchdown. With a little over 10 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, the Chiefs found themselves with the ball on the Eagles’ 4-yard-line with a full set of downs at their disposal. Look at what they ran on 1st and goal.

Anything there look familiar?

We’ll circle back to that in a moment, but first, here’s the very next plan the Chiefs ran from the goal line, which resulted in a touchdown run by Pacheco.

Again, what is familiar here? The answer, of course (and what we’re building towards here), is the sweep action motion by Moore on both plays. On the second, he actually motions across the formation then back again just for good measure.

Watch how the Eagles communicate and switch as Moore crosses the formation on these plays. Then go back and watch Toney’s touchdown. Philadelphia, for lack of a better term, showed something of a “tell” in how they would handle jet sweep actions in the red zone on both of these plays by trying to communicate and switch rather than having the defender follow the receiver.

And in case you were wondering, this wasn’t the first, second, or third time the Chiefs had utilized a similar action throughout this game. In fact, prior to the first “corn dog” call to Toney in the 4th quarter, Reid had called Moore or another receiver (but usually Moore) to motion across the formation at the time of the snap (thus threatening a jet sweep-style play) NINE different times. This includes early in the game, where they used that action to try and freeze the defense in order for Pacheco to have more space to roam going the opposite direction.

They had even handed the ball off to Moore once on one of those actions (which helps legitimize the threat of an actual sweep).

Beyond those nine instances of utilizing that action, they also had their boundary receiver motion inside on four separate occasions, and not one of those times had they had said receiver move back outside.

And here’s where we get to the idea of sequential play calling and setting defenses up. The Chiefs used jet sweet actions all season (and have for years) to great effect to try and open up the run game. They’ve used it in all sorts of ways, from handing it off (or using a short push pass) to the sweeping player, to a handoff the opposite direction, to just a faked action leading to a dropback pass, to having the sweeping player sprint to the sideline for a screen, to even trying some downfield shots by the player running the sweep.

13 times they had used an action that looked similar, and that included multiple plays in a row at the goal line. And all of it was not just to move the ball, but to gather information and (in theory) lull a high-level defense into a sense of complacency regarding their switches and checks. And that, taken together, led to this:

There’s not an Eagle within what, 10 yards of Toney here? It’s completely absurd in the best way possible. A good defense was caught completely unprepared. And part of it was because Reid had done the same thing over and over and over… until now. This time, of course, he had Toney reverse course as the ball was being snapped. The Eagles were already communicating how to handle Toney sweeping through. He just never, for lack of a better term, swept.

You can see that Mahomes is already celebrating even as the ball is arriving despite Toney being at the 5-yard-line. It was that much of a sure thing.

And funnily enough, Reid wasn’t quite done with a clinic on sequential play calling. As the whole world knows, a punt return by Toney shortly after this touchdown led to another goal line opportunity for the Chiefs. And one of the things Reid did with that goal line shot? He had Moore run a jet sweep action without getting the ball, giving the Eagles a similar look to Toney’s TD but this time doing what they’d done the previous dozen times in the game.

Then one play after that… well, you know.

Just a few plays after getting burned by the same action, the Eagles fall for it again (despite the Chiefs being in the wrong formation, which will never not be funny). Would they have done so if Reid hadn’t run a “standard” sweep action in between? It’s impossible to say (he had definitely ID’d an issue with their defensive switches/communication at this point).

But what we do know is this; Moore is somehow even more open than Toney was. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Moore was the player they were running sweep actions with all game. When you see a guy do the same thing 10 times, that 11th time changing up will take you by surprise.

One thing that’s worth noting is that it wasn’t just the Super Bowl that found the Chiefs running sweep action after sweep action. They utilized it multiple times in every game this year (including the AFC Championship, where it generally wasn’t very effective as an individual play for Moore), and it set them up for this sort of play.

This isn’t the only example of Reid doing this sort of thing. Another would be the fullback handoff on short yardage plays unfolding into a quick pitch to the running back, and then into a quick throw to the outside after a play action fake. And it’s not as though Reid is the only coach who layers his play calls over the course of the game and the course of the season. But few are as patient as Reid, who understands that primary goal of every play isn’t always necessarily to gain yards. Instead, sometimes it’s to gain information or, even more crucially, gain an edge.

Little things like this are part of what makes football a great sport, and I hope reading about it like this makes you love the game even more. It certainly does for me. And speaking of that…

Three years of the Chief in the North Newsletter

Three years. Over 350 articles.

I don’t know what to say. I wrote this three years ago:

This newsletter has been a long time coming, and is something I’m deeply excited about. I’ve long wanted to have a direct line of Chiefs coverage from me to you, Chiefs Kingdom. I wanted to find a way to deliver straight to you the sort of coverage that you’ve (hopefully) come to expect from me over the years, without having to worry about clickbait or SEO or the other things that dominate the sports coverage world. If we’re able to make this work, that’s precisely what this newsletter will be.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating; At the time I wrote those words, I’d hoped (dreamed?) that this site could become a fun little side project. Instead, it’s become my primary source of content, a place I’ve been able to devote almost all my attention to in the efforts to go beyond the box score on all things Chiefs.

I never thought this was possible, at least not at this level and scale. I never thought it would develop into a community like this.

And literally the only reason it’s happened is because of the unbelievable support from all of you. The fact that you’ve trusted me enough to subscribe and make it worth your while means a great deal more than I’ll ever be able to properly express, and I hope that you’ve found it worth every penny and more.

The blessing this site (and more specifically, all of you) has been to me, my family, and my career is impossible to overstate to you all. Thanks for being terrific community, for being so much fun in the comments, and for all the support. Here’s to another great year, having even more fun, talking even more Chiefs, and a future that seems limitless thanks to you!

It’s a great time to write about the Chiefs. Thank you for the chance to do it!