Fake-punt stop highlights Chiefs’ improved special-teams play

It had not been a good few weeks for Chiefs’ special teams. Botched place-kicking operations and fumbled punts were out of character for a team that had been consistently solid during the team’s turnaround phase.

But the Chiefs’ 34-14 triumph over the Ravens on Sunday was constructed with the aid of some excellent play on special teams.

It wasn’t a complete day. But two moments stood out, one that changed the game’s momentum and another that put distance between the teams.

Late in the first quarter with the Chiefs leading 14-7, the Ravens faced a fourth-and-9 from their 17. Sam Koch came on to attempt to flip the field.

Instead, the Ravens flipped out as Koch took off up the middle.

Chiefs safety Daniel Sorensen, on the punt-coverage team, was getting blocked, but he never took his eyes off Koch.

“Just as I was about to turn and run, I saw the punter step forward and it looked unnatural,” Sorensen said.

From the 17, on 4-and-9? That’s about as unnatural situation as it gets for a fake punt.

“I turned around, tried to close in and get there as quick as possible,” Sorensen said. “We’re thinking 4th-and-9, they’re backed up, not particularly the situation you’d think if to run a fake punt, but we were on alert for the whole game.”

Sorensen got to Koch first and Demetrius Harris helped finish him off. Koch gained 7, coming up 2 yards short.

The Chiefs quickly scored a short-field touchdown for a 14-point lead.

What did the Ravens see?

“I’m not going to tell you how we set up our fakes, how we put them on and how we call them off,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. “But the call was the call, to run the fake against that look. We thought we would get it.”

Twice in his postgame interview, Harbaugh said the score of the game was 21-7 when the fake was called. It was 14-7.

The Chiefs had their antenna up against a Ravens team that entered the game ranked first in the NFL in overall special-teams play according to footballoutsiders.com.

“We were on alert the whole game,” Sorensen said.

Late in the second quarter, the Chiefs extended their lead to 24-7 on Cairo Santos’ 53-yard field goal. The distance matched a career best for Santos, a second-year pro. His perfect day of two field goals and four extra points demonstrated a resolve to clean up the place-kicking operation that had troubles over the last few weeks.

Santos had missed a field goal and extra point, and the team didn’t get off an extra-point kick over the past two games. Wet field conditions played a part, but the Chiefs emphasized cleaning up the problem in practice this week, said long snapper James Winchester.

“We bounced back,” Winchester said. “With snapping, holding and kicking, the smallest thing can make the biggest difference. We worked hard this week in practice, it was a good week, a positive week.”

The Chiefs weren’t perfect. Punt returner Frank Hammond lost 10 yards on one punt return. The Chiefs also kept alive a Ravens drive when Harris was penalized for running into Koch.

And the Chiefs, who after an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty for celebrating their first touchdown had to kick off from the 20, allowed a long return. The Ravens started in Chiefs’ territory and answered the touchdown with a short-field one of their own.

But otherwise, a good bounce-back from a unit that had hit a recent slump.

This story was originally published December 20, 2015 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Fake-punt stop highlights Chiefs’ improved special-teams play."