The Chargers threw Chiefs’ Travis Kelce a curveball. How he still got the last laugh
One day last week, as Patrick Mahomes dove into a description about his progressions, about how he moves from one read to the next, he interrupted himself to acknowledge one exception.
“If (Travis) Kelce is manned up,” he said, “I give him the ball.”
Mahomes would clarify four days later that, never mind the laugh that accompanied that line, there wasn’t an ounce of sarcasm to it. He meant it, without a care in the world that he had divulged information most defenses would like to have.
Thing is, though, they already have it. This is the worst-kept secret in the Chiefs’ offense, already on film for the world to see.
And, wouldn’t you know it, they got ‘em again. A one-liner meant to describe the past and perhaps the present proved instead a prophetic look toward the future.
Mahomes threw three touchdowns to Kelce in the Chiefs’ 30-27 win late Sunday against the Chargers, and the final two connections came on the very circumstance that Mahomes had revealed four days earlier.
Man coverage.
But with so much more to it.
His second score put the Chiefs ahead in the fourth quarter for the first time in the second half. The next put the Chiefs ahead for good and all but wrapped up yet another AFC West title.
It’s the final touchdown — a 17-yard score with 31 seconds on the clock to seal the 30-27 final — that provided us with deeper insight into the Mahomes-Kelce relationship.
Turns out, you can know what’s coming, know that there’s nowhere on earth Mahomes would rather throw the football, and you’re still two steps behind the play, figuratively and then literally. You need more information than an awareness of Mahomes’ unwavering plans to target Kelce. It’s where Kelce will be. It’s how he will get there. It’s how and when he will turn your strengths into your sudden weaknesses.
The nuts and bolts of the 17-yard touchdown was a drag route against — you guessed it — man coverage from All-Pro safety Derwin James. The play has been in the Chiefs’ book for quite some time, exhausted throughout every season, designed to get the ball to Kelce early and let him do the bulk of the work after the catch. That’s how it played out here, Kelce receiving the ball just two yards past the line of scrimmage, his momentum enough to carry the final 15.
But why that play? Why in that moment?
Earlier in the night, Kelce and coach Andy Reid had noticed that James was defending Kelce’s outside shoulder when in man coverage, an effective way to prevent Kelce from getting open outside the hashes or on vertical routes. They were also keenly aware that the Chargers were physical with Kelce at the line of scrimmage.
The Chiefs used both against them. And won the game because of it.
At the onset of the snap, Kelce took a jab step toward the outside for a quick release that had James moving outside with him. Then Kelce cut across the middle of the field, the lone spot where he could beat James’ outside leverage.
Game over.
“Coach Reid saw that and called a play where I could just get across field and try to beat him with my legs,” Kelce told reporters in Los Angeles after the game. “These old, 33 (year-old) legs, man.”
It’s certainly interesting that this is the same play the Chiefs used to beat the Chargers a year ago at SoFi Stadium, as Kelce pointed out to Peter King — Mahomes to Kelce on a drag for an overtime touchdown — particularly since they added a pre-snap motion to effectively tell the Chargers, nah, man, this ain’t the same play you’ve seen before.
The route is a regular part of the Chiefs’ scheme. It’s the sixth time in this season alone that Kelce has scored on a crossing route, double the amount of any other player, per Next Gen Stats.
But what’s more fascinating is the in-game adjustment, because it helps to answer a question so many of us have had:
How do teams keep letting Travis Kelce get open?
The Chiefs played without wide receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster, Mecole Hardman and Kadarius Toney in Los Angeles. How can you let Kelce beat you? How can he, at age 33, look every bit as effective as he did at 28?
This is how.
The in-game adjustments.
Kelce has called James his most difficult one-on-one matchup, and the stats bear that out. That touchdown is actually the first time in the last six meetings that Kelce had scored with James as his closest defender, Next Gen Stats showed. And even Sunday night, Kelce said James “got the better of me for the majority of the game, and it’s one of those things where you would hope to get the right things dialed up at the right moments.”
Even when you beat Kelce for a snap, or for a quarter, or for a half, he’s playing the long game. Storing the information. And using it later.
Whereas his advantage once relied on a combination of speed, agility and size, it has transformed into the nuances within the game to keep him as productive as he’s ever been. He has set a career high with 11 touchdowns this season. It’s a new level of attention to detail, and there are two parts of it — the scheme and the individual.
The play Sunday doesn’t come together without knowing he was getting a heavy dose of man coverage, nor without knowing he was getting bumped at the line of scrimmage. That was the scheme. The individual matchup, though, drove the play, forcing one of the best cover safeties in football into chasing him across the field, a couple of steps behind.
“We’re always aware of how they’re trying to play him,” Reid said. “We call it ‘butching’ him — they’ll come in and try to really hammer him but with that kind of (outside) leverage they’re trying to do that with. And he was — Derwin was playing him with a little bit more outside leverage.
“He changed it up a bit, but he played outside leverage, and we figured even though it’s tight and he’s still trying to hit him (at the line of scrimmage), Kelce could set that up.”
Even if it takes 59 minutes to do it.
Eventually, he’s got you.
This story was originally published November 22, 2022 at 10:28 AM.