There has never been a lack of creativity in Kansas City Chiefs HC Andy Reid’s offense.
Fans have witnessed a number of creative and memorable plays over the years, all with their own unique origins and names. Bloated Tebow Pass, Shift to Rose Bowl Right Parade, Ferrari Right, Slot Machine Right and so on. In Week 18 against the Las Vegas Raiders, we got to see the latest installation of creativity from the offense, even if the play didn’t end up counting.
During the second quarter, the Chiefs found themselves on second down in the red zone. The players formed in a unique huddle and debuted quite the trick play.
So this just happened? 😂
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After the spinning huddle, Creed Humphrey snapped the ball directly to Jerick McKinnon, who promptly pitched it to Mahomes. The quarterback found Kadarius Toney on the throwback for a 9-yard touchdown reception. The play would be nullified by a very questionable holding call on Humphrey (it was a pancake block). They scored on the ensuing play, so the penalty didn’t rob the team of anything other than this glorious play being considered a success.
In the postgame sideline report from ESPN’s Laura Rutledge, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes spoke about the creativity of the offense and how that particular play came to be.
“Yeah, we enjoy it,” Mahomes said. “We draw up these plays all the time and Coach Reid kind of lets us have the reins to help do some stuff and add our own flare. We got that touchdown, but they called it back, so we’ll have to come up with another one for the playoffs.”
So what can fans call this particular play? Put it down as “Snow Globe” in the Rolodex.
“We call it ‘Snow Globe’ because we drew it up right before Christmas,” Mahomes said. “We actually practiced it kind of messing around and Coach Reid was like, ‘I like that.’ So we put it in the game plan and it worked, but we had a holding penalty, so we didn’t get a touchdown. So, we’ll have to think of something else cool.”
Andy Reid referred to it as both “Reindeer Personnel” and “Artic Circle.” According to Mahomes, “Snow Globe” is merely an abbreviation.
“It’s a combination — Reindeer Personnel, Article Circle, Snow Globe — I just call it ‘Snow Globe,'” Mahomes explained. “That’s why I said it out there. It’s the easiest way to remember it. It’s a long play call.”
What did Reid view as the advantage of running a play with the spinning huddle at that particular moment? Chaos, doubt, indecision and confusion on the part of the Raiders’ defense.
“Well, you saw how it ended up? That’s the benefit,” Reid said. “It’s just to create a little bit of confusion and then to line up in something that’s not familiar to the opposing team. I thought the guys executed it well, but we ended up with a holding penalty on it. But they did good with it and the players enjoy doing that stuff. So we just throw it out there and let them work it.”
As for who came up with the play, Reid doesn’t know for certain, but he did know that he liked what he saw.
“We’ve kind of messed around with it in practice before,” Reid said. “Pat (Mahomes), we call it the laboratory down in there. He gets the guys in there and they don’t put their name on it, they just bring it to me. I’ve got 51% of the vote, so if I like it, we go with it.”
Mahomes revealed that the team has been perfecting and working on some version of this play for over a year. When they brought it back for 2023, they added a new element to it.
“It was something we had kind of practiced on actually last year,” Mahomes said. “Kind of getting the confusion going and getting to line up for the snap. We didn’t get a chance to run it last year. It kind of got, not thrown away, but as the season gets started you get back to the basics. As the season went on, I was kind of like nudging Coach Reid like, ‘Hey, let’s bring it back in a different way.’ We didn’t have that throwback on it the last time we ran it. So, hopefully, we can maybe do it again and get back to what we ran last time and get another touchdown.”
There is some sense that maybe the team should have held this play in their back pocket for the playoffs. They felt this was the right moment to call it, but you can rest assured they’ll get back into the lab and have something special cooked up for the postseason.
“We work on stuff throughout the entire season and try to call it in the right moments,” Mahomes said. “Coach Reid gives us some freedom to do some of our own flair to it. That circle one was one that we had kind of ran some plays like it and we talked about it on the side like, ‘Hey let’s see if we can do this and get some confusion going and throw something back.’ The only thing is it has to work. It worked, but we got the holding penalty, so we’ll have to get some good stuff going for the playoffs. Whatever we run it has to work.”
