Arrowhead Pride
Houston came in with a different look, and the Chiefs were prepared for it.
Before last week’s game against the Houston Texans, I predicted that Travis Kelce might have a huge game if the Texans changed their defensive game plan.
There’s a chance Ryans could look back on the Week 16 game and decide he can’t play that way against Kansas City again. To win, the Texans must create a low-scoring game in which they can rely on their defense. So we could see Ryans use more zone coverages to keep the secondary’s eyes on Mahomes, trusting its speed to rally and tackle. If that’s the way Houston goes, I would expect a big day for tight end Travis Kelce, who could pick the secondary apart by finding holes and manipulating its zone drops. Kelce doesn’t have as much success against man coverage as we used to see — but against zone coverages, his intelligence (and feel for space) can help him win.
That prediction became a reality.
After only having five catches for 30 yards against the Texans with a man-coverage game plan in Week 16, Kelce erupted in this game with seven catches for 117 yards and a touchdown. The Texans still played man coverage on third downs, but they did end up using more zone coverages that kept vision on the quarterback and limited the switch releases and motions the Chiefs utilized in Week 16. Because of this, Kelce was able to thrive.
Let’s break the ways Kelce got open vs. these coverages;
Once Chiefs head coach Andy Reid was able to see that the Texans were playing more zone coverages on early downs, Reid was able to adjust his game plan and playcalls to account for that. Early in the game, we saw this incredible play. The Chiefs put Travis Kelce split out from Mahomes, then motion Noah Gray over to form a sidecar formation with their tight ends.
When the play occurs, Mahomes fakes the handoff with Gray leaking into the flat. The play fake and the flat route catch the eyes of the linebackers and box safety, who fail to turn their heads and run with Kelce up the seam. Mahomes has an easy explosive for Kelce, who gets behind the defense without anyone looking.
When I was expecting a zone-coverage-based approach by the Texans in this game, I thought it was a way for the Chiefs to attack Houston’s overly aggressive linebackers, and this play was a great design by Reid to free Kelce and exploit that weakness.
This play is man coverage with the blitz, but the linebacker is zoning off the middle of the field where Kelce gets open. Mahomes moved the linebacker with his eyes to get him to guess wrong, and Kelce found a huge void in the middle of the field.
Mahomes being able to move linebackers with his eyes and...
