Andy Reid dug deep into football history in Week 1, and the result was one of the Kansas City Chiefs’ strangest-looking touchdowns of the night.
With the Chiefs already rolling in the fourth quarter, Reid turned to a play he said dates all the way back to 1936. The setup was eye-catching: Patrick Mahomes and Justin Fields lined up together, Travis Kelce was also in the backfield, and Kenneth Walker finished it off with an easy score on an underhanded toss from Mahomes.
The play came with Kansas City up by 14 on the goal line, and it gave Walker his second touchdown of the night. After the snap, Walker broke to his right, took the toss, found room, and walked in untouched.
Reid later said the idea came from Chris Berman.
“Chris Berman sent me that play, so that’s a 1936er right there. It was honestly, it was a great play, you know, they executed it well," Reid said, per A to Z Sports."
We did it at training camp. I mean, yeah, we’ve run it, we’ve run it before, just not that smooth.”
Mahomes said the team called it “Heisman,” and added that the Chiefs studied old black-and-white film to get it right.
“It was called Heisman,” Mahomes said, per A to Z Sports. “I can’t remember who exactly ran it because it was black and white.
It was very scratchy when we were watching it. It was a play that Coach (Andy) Heck brought to us.
"I’m sure Coach Reid had his imprint on it as well, and we designed it, and I just knew it was going to score. And hopefully that can set some stuff up. You know, Justin’s got a lot of ability running the ball and throwing the ball as well, and so hopefully that’s the first iteration of it.”
Walker described the film study in the same way, saying the footage was nearly impossible to make out.
“The film we watched was probably from 1900, so you know it was hard to see,” Walker said, per A to Z Sports. “But you know, we worked on it, and you know, we worked it over and over in practice, and you know, felt like that was going to work, and you know, it did.”
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