Here’s the amazing history behind the Chiefs’ Super Bowl trick play
By now, you have probably heard the Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl champions.
A key to their success in Super Bowl 54 against the San Francisco 49ers was straight out of the college football playbook.
More specifically, a really old college play.
The Chiefs borrowed a play used in the 1948 Rose Bowl during a pivotal early moment in Sunday’s Super Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium. Kansas City trailed the 49ers while facing a fourth-and-1 inside San Francisco’s 10-yard line.
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid didn’t play it safe.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes and his backfield did a synchronized spin move to change a formation, which allowed running back Damien Williams to get a direct snap and run just shy of the goal line for the first down in the first quarter. The Chiefs later scored a touchdown.
The play, which left plenty on Twitter baffled with the spinning formation change, drew inspiration from the 1948 Rose Bowl with Michigan and USC.
“It was from ‘48,” Reid said Monday morning. “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. 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.”
Longtime NFL running back LeSean McCoy, who played for Reid in Philadelphia before rejoining his old coach in Kansas City this season, noticed old game tape when showing up to Reid’s office at times.
“There’s times when I go into his office and he’ll be watching old game tape,” LeSean McCoy told the Herald last week. “The TV’s like grayish. The guys have the leather helmets. He’s watching it and it’s like amazing. He’s learning from it.”
The Chiefs won 31-20 to claim their first Super Bowl in 50 years.
