In the games biggest moment, Andy Reid trusted his best play maker to seal the game.
Trust is a powerful thing, and in football, trust can lead to confidence which in return leads to success. Trust isn’t easy to come across, but when a coach has trust in his players it is evident, and the trust between Andy Reid and Tyreek Hill was on full display in the Chiefs’ thrilling win over the Browns in Sunday’s Divisional Round matchup.
The game started like any other, with Patrick Mahomes finding Hill deep, and gashing helpless secondary players.
Early on the Chiefs even showed Hill lined up at running back and used him on the early third-down seen above. This is something we have not seen from Hill at all this season, but we should keep an eye on it for the remainder of the Chiefs playoff run.
Cleveland’s secondary has struggled all season long, so their best bet was to play zone with some man thrown in and not give up any deep balls. For a team like the Chiefs who regularly bust zone coverage, this would allow Tyreek Hill to find the soft spots in the coverage, and allow Mahomes to identify them based on the motions Hill ran and the adjustment the defense made.
Headed into half time the Chiefs were in full control of the game, up 19-3, but early in the third quarter Patrick Mahomes left the game with concussion-like symptoms and was replaced by backup up Chad Henne. This lead to the Browns cutting down the lead and the Chiefs needing to find some momentum. Andy Reid went to Hill to help Henne, as well as put the game on ice.
The first big play Hill made ended up costing the Browns a time out as he made a sensational grab with heavily contested defense.
In what was one of the gutsiest play calls of the season Andy Reid put the season on the line and used the Chiefs’ two best players to ice the game. Kelce has to draw the coverage up the field while Hill takes a quick jab step in then heads on the out route as Henne starts to roll he throws it to Hill who then just falls down so the Chiefs can kill the clock for the win.
Unbelievable call by Reid, and another Herculean effort from Hill in this one. Hill finished with eight receptions for 110 yards and, of course, the massive play to end the game. Reid knew he wanted to run that play and we even saw the exact same route concept to run the big fourth-down play against the Miami Dolphins.
This was two weeks after Mahomes went to Hill to seal a game on fourth down vs the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
This is starting to paint a picture of who Reid’s go-to guys are on when the game is on the line, but his trust in Hill is unwavering. It’s taken trust to get Hill to KC, it’s taken trust to keep Hill in KC, and now it is that trust that has propelled the Chiefs into a third straight AFC Championship game.
