If you watched Super Bowl LIV at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Garden, Fla., on Sunday night, one of the plays that likely stood out happened on the Kansas City Chiefs’ first scoring drive.
In the first quarter, on fourth-and-1, the Chiefs were on the San Francisco 49ers 5-yard line. With four players in the backfield, including quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the quartet then did a synchronized spin as part of their pre-snap shift.
Running back Damien Williams then took the direct snap, falling just short of the end zone, but keeping the drive alive.
Mahomes scored on a 1-yard rush two plays later. He was later named MVP after Kansas City scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter.
At the time, it wasn’t known where the first-quarter play came from. But after the Chiefs’ 31-20 win, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy spilled the beans — the 1948 Rose Bowl game between Michigan and USC.
“I probably shouldn’t be giving this away,” Bieniemy told reporters after the game. “The Rose Bowl. Michigan vs. USC. And so, it’s just a play that we’ve been working and wondering when we can polish it off. It was fun to watch. And those guys did a great job of executing it. I mean that hard work and practicing that play for the entire season, it just worked and paid off.”
Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy says he got this play design from watching this old Rose Bowl game. Michigan ran it over & over in a 49-0 win over USC pic.twitter.com/0uGYxxUnST
— Kevin Boilard (@247KevinBoilard) February 3, 2020
Side by side, the two plays do look similar, but the Chiefs did put their own spin on it with the synchronized spin before the snap.
Michigan’s coach in 1948, Fritz Crisler, was famous for running trick plays, crisscrosses, quick hits and spins out of the single-wing formation.
Head coach Andy Reid further elaborated on how the play came to fruition on Monday.
“My brother’s high school coach was actually in that game for USC, so I went and looked at the tape, went back through and pulled that out,” Reid told reporters. “We actually had a whole package of it, so you’ll have to wait until next year to see it. There’s some good stuff.”
Before the game, Chiefs receivers coach Greg Lewis praised Reid for his ability to pull elements from any level of the sport.
“He studies like no other coach I’ve ever been around,” Lewis told reporters last week. “He studies college games, high school games, CFL games, European games. He’ll go look at stuff from 1910. He knows everything. He has a beautiful mind. He is able to compartmentalize everything then bring it out at the right moment, ‘Oh, this is something I saw on film from 70 years ago.’”
First Published February 3, 2020, 7:53 p.m.
