Another Brilliant AFC Championship Game Performance for Andy Reid
Leave it to the Chiefs to save their best offensive performance of the year for the AFC Championship Game against the Bills. After finishing 2024 as the 15th-best scoring offense in the NFL, K.C. put a season-high 32 points on the board against Buffalo, and they’re advancing to an unprecedented 5th Super Bowl in 6 seasons as a result.
One of the biggest takeaways from this side of the ball was the effectiveness of the Chiefs’ rushing attack, particularly to finish drives. They scored 3 rushing touchdowns, with two of those coming courtesy of the exact same playcall.
The interesting thing about this particular play design is that it was something the Bills hadn’t seen out of Kansas City all year.
The play was a counter-read with a double bluff out of a “full house” backfield/ “diamond” formation.
The right guard and tackle would pull in one direction (the counter part of the play), and tight ends Travis Kelce and Noah Gray would block in the other direction (the double bluff):
Patrick Mahomes would read the end man on the line of scrimmage (EMOL):
The EMOL didn’t bite hard enough inside as he eyed the mesh point between Mahomes and Kareem Hunt. That triggered a “give” read for Mahomes. So he gave the ball to Hunt, who followed his pulling guard and tackle and carried it in for Kansas City’s first touchdown of the night:
Later in the game, with the Chiefs trailing 22-21 in the 4th quarter, they would run the exact same play for another score. This time, the EMOL crashed hard inside:
So Mahomes kept it, and followed his 2-man escort to the end zone:
While the Bills may not have seen the Chiefs run this play before, Andy Reid certainly saw it successfully run against the Bills this season. In fact, the Ravens used it to score a touchdown back in their Week 4 thrashing of Buffalo:
The NFL is a copycat league, and Reid clearly installed the play specifically for this matchup because he had seen it work against Buffalo before. It led to two pivotal touchdowns.
The other thing that stood out about the Chiefs’ performance was how sharp their short-passing game was.
To be clear, their passing game all season has focused primarily on short-to-intermediate throws. K.C. was dead last in air yards per attempt during the regular season and had the 6th fewest pass plays of 20+ yards. They didn’t have much success attacking downfield.
That trend continued against the Bills as Mahomes completed just one pass traveling 20 yards or more from the line of scrimmage. And that one should have been picked off by Cole Bishop, but it was wrestled away by Xavier Worthy.
That play aside, the Chiefs were able to generate consistent offense with their passing game, and that included four 20-plus-yard plays. This was largely due to Reid’s ability to create space in the short-to-intermediate areas of the field, leading to easy completions and yards after the catch.
Reid used a variety of tactics to do this, from motion, to RPO’s, to bunches, stacks, and pick plays.
It started on their very first snap of the game. The Chiefs used motion to widen the corner and an RPO to put linebacker Matt Milano in conflict: