What play do the Chiefs call Mayday? It worked perfectly in the last game
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs executed 'Mayday' field goal drill with zero seconds left in first half.
- Harrison Butker converted a 59-yard kick after a rapid clock-stopping sequence.
- Play highlighted coordination and timing in rare high-pressure field goal setup.
That 59-yard field goal by Harrison Butker during the Chiefs’ season opener against the Los Angeles Chargers last Friday in Brazil — with no time remaining on the clock at the end of the first half — wasn’t the longest kick of his career.
But it could become part of a teaching clinic for placekickers and special teams units.
The speed, coordination and precision required to pull it off even has an appropriate name in the Chiefs’ playbook: Mayday.
Like many fire drill-like situations, the Chiefs practice Mayday plenty, even though they know that they may never need to use it during a given season.
“It doesn’t happen very often,” said Dave Toub, the team’s special teams coordinator and assistant head coach.
But who knows? Maybe the Chiefs will find themselves in a similar situation on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles at home. The Super Bowl LIX participants play at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in a game that kicks off at 3:25 p.m.
A reset: The Chiefs faced a fourth-and-17 from the L.A. 40-yard line after quarterback Patrick Mahomes hit tight end Noah Gray for a 3-yard completion along the sideline. Chargers cornerback Tarheeb Still made a solid play, pushing Gray out of bounds backwards. That meant the clock wouldn’t stop.
So the ensuing play, the one on which Butker kicked the 59-yarder, started with 17 seconds remaining ... and the Chiefs had already used all of their timeouts.
With the clock running, KC needed to replace its offense with its field-goal unit. Then the Chiefs had to get set, and long-snapper James Winchester needed to get the ball to holder Matt Araiza — all within that 17-second span.
But there was more to it, and it started with Gray.
“Noah exploded back with the football,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid explained Thursday. “So that was saving seconds, which is an important part of the situation that won’t be talked about.”
Gray, who was also part of the field-goal unit, ran back onto the field and handed the ball to the official before taking his place as the last man on the left side. (More on the ball in a moment, by the way.)
Six Chiefs offensive players had to come off the field before the ball could be snapped for the long field-goal try: Mahomes, tight end Travis Kelce, running back Isiah Pacheco, wide receivers Hollywood Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster and right tackle Jawaan Taylor all ran to the sideline, with Brown covering the most ground.
Toub shouted “Mayday” and Butker, Winchester and Araiza ran onto the field, along with linemen Jaylon Moore, Wanya Morris and Mike Caliendo. As Morris and Caliendo ran out, each had his right arm raised and was patting his jersey — indicating to the officials, as required, that they were eligible receivers.
During training camp, the entire Chiefs field-goal team practiced Mayday. But once the season starts, the only group with time to work on such fire drill-type plays is the kicking trio.
“We do it a lot,” Winchester said. “But the whole team doesn’t do that drill but a handful of times a year.”
You couldn’t tell in Sao Paulo. Everybody knew where to be and understood the urgency of the moment. There was no time to consider anything else.
“There’s not a whole lot of thinking going on,” Araiza said.
One piece of thinking, or rather searching, usually factors into the process: another football is needed, the one used by the kickers. Not the one Mahomes throws.
There is a difference. Toub said the team receives about 100 footballs. The kickers will work with theirs, “softening them up ... like you’re not getting a ball out of a box,” Toub said.
Quarterback footballs are harder and typically haven’t gone through the same process. According to Toub, those QB balls don’t travel as far off the foot and could mean a difference of up to five yards on a field-goal attempt.
On this occasion, the Chiefs didn’t have time to grab the replacement ball, so Butker put his powerful right foot into the ball Gray had caught and handed to the official. The kick was good with room to spare.
That successful field goal cut the Chiefs’ halftime deficit to 13-6, but they couldn’t catch the Chargers in what became a 27-21 loss. The Chiefs know, however, that if they have to run Mayday again, they’ll have a reference for success.
And maybe next time they’ll shave a second or two from the drill.
“In practice,” Toub said, “we see how fast we can go. We’ve done it in 15 seconds.”
Vahe Gregorian contributed to this story.
This story was originally published September 11, 2025 at 2:55 PM.