The Chiefs not only won Super Bowl 54, they were a blast to watch. No, their offense didn’t really come alive until the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t for a lack of innovation. Or should I say, a really inspired bit of throwback trickery.
The Chiefs’ razzle-dazzle goal-line play came straight out of the 1948 Rose Bowl
The depth of Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy’s football knowledge knows no bounds.
On their way to a late first-quarter touchdown Sunday, the Chiefs ran this razzle-dazzle direct snap to running back Damien Williams to get down to the 1-yard line.
The way that the players coordinated their spin moves inspired comparisons to early-aughts boy band dancers, but the play is even more retro than that. After the game, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy said the Chiefs ripped the play from an old USC-Michigan Rose Bowl. Banner Society’s Alex Kirshner did some sleuthing and found Fritz Crisler’s “Mad Magicians” Michigan team running almost the exact play on New Year’s Day, 1948.
(Kirshner originally highlighted this play, which also looks similar. Either way, the comparison is really cool.)
The play is a tribute to Andy Reid’s legendary depth of football study. He is known as one of the most innovative coaches in the history of football, but that “innovation” largely reflects a mind that is better at researching, absorbing and adapting to new ideas that already exist within the football landscape.
Essentially, Reid has succeeded by incorporating college football principles into his offensive gameplans more quickly and seamlessly than his peers. That said, I think few people were expecting to see football’s cutting-edge principles from just after World War II cropping in the year Two Thousand Twenty.
Then again, you could do a lot worse than cribbing from Fritz Crisler. The 1947 Michigan team is one of the very best in program history, capping a 10-0 season with a 49-0 win over the Trojans and being voted No. 1 in the Associated Press over Notre Dame.
Apparently in order to end a 50-year championship drought, the Chiefs had to pull off the double feat of recalling more than 70 years of history and making Michigan football relevant in a major bowl game.
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