Winner: Andy Reid’s Game Plan
With a 30-17 win over the Lions on Sunday night, the Chiefs have scored at least 28 points in each of their last three games. That’s a benchmark Kansas City hit only four times during the 2024 regular season and only three times in 2023. Even if we’re not witnessing a full-on revival of the Chiefs offense that tore through the league from 2018 to 2022, it does feel fun again. The win also pulled Kansas City back to .500 after an 0-2 start had idiots like me ready to bury them in September.
Patrick Mahomes, who was brilliant once again, deserves most of the credit for the turnaround, but we also can’t ignore what Andy Reid is doing with the offensive scheme. The 67-year-old coach has made some key changes to the offense, including calling for more under-center formations with bigger personnel on the field. Reid especially deviated from his typical approach against the Lions, putting Mahomes in shotgun on a season-low 66.1 percent of the snaps and playing 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers) on a season-low 33.9 percent of plays. The changes seemed to catch Detroit off guard, and the Chiefs were particularly effective when using the under-center run game, which produced 58 yards on a season-high 12 attempts. In response to the Chiefs’ success on the ground, the Lions had no choice but to put bigger defenders on the field, and Mahomes in turn found ways to attack Detroit’s linebackers by exploiting a variety of mismatches in the pass game. Per Next Gen Stats, the Chiefs quarterback completed 13-of-17 passes for 165 yards and a touchdown when targeting Lions linebackers in coverage. It was a great plan by Reid, and Mahomes executed it to perfection.
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