Packers vs. Chiefs: Andy Reid’s creative genius returns and other lessons

Andy Reid Needed a Game Without Mahomes

Andy Reid needed this game without Patrick Mahomes.

This season, Reid has not been the same play caller Chiefs’ fans have come accustomed to: not much trickery, not fully utilizing the team’s quickness, leaning heavily on the safe RPOs. If it were not for the motion and RPOs, it would be hard to prove Andy Reid is even calling the plays.

That changed for this game, where Big Red was pulling out all the fun plays: reverses, shovel passes, bubble and slip screen passes. When every pre snap motion could lead into a play, defenses are always one or two steps behind which opens up all sorts of options in the playbook. Move Tyreek Hill from right to left then to the backfield, and before this week, it’s just a misleading motion to draw safeties forward. After this week, it could be a shovel, or a reverse, or a slip screen, or a misleading motion.

When Mahomes returns, this Chiefs team needs to keep playing just as hard as they were with him gone. Every player on this team playing unselfishly and at one hundred percent is an unstoppable force.