Chiefs' all-out blitz with Super Bowl berth on the line is defensive play call of the year

New York Times

27-01-2025

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Most inside the Kansas City huddle knew the call before it came in.
'I had an intuition,' defensive end George Karlaftis admitted later. 'And I wasn't the only one.'
Cornerback Trent McDuffie heard it and grinned, then darted to the left side of the field and eagerly awaited the snap. He knew the stakes. He knew the assignment. He'd been waiting all game for the chance to chase down Josh Allen. Here it was.
'I wanted that blitz,' McDuffie would say later, revisiting the pivotal play in Sunday's AFC Championship Game.
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Two minutes remained. The Chiefs led the Bills by three, 32-29, and the Buffalo offense faced a fourth-and-5 from its own 47-yard line. A conversion would keep the Bills' chances alive; a stop would all but secure the Chiefs' third straight trip to the Super Bowl. The latest instant classic in the AFC's best running rivalry rested on one play. McDuffie's number had been called.
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'I looked at Trent and gave him those eyes,' safety Jordan Hicks said. 'It was like, time to go.'
Brett Veach watched intently from the owner's suite at Arrowhead Stadium, worried that something he'd half-jokingly mentioned to his family earlier in the afternoon — 'first team to 35 wins' — was about to come true.
'God, I hope I'm not right,' the Chiefs' general manager told himself.
Patrick Mahomes stood on the sideline, teeming with angst. 'I'm always nervous when the football is not in my hand,' the quarterback admitted.
Owner Clark Hunt was less worried.
'I trust in Spags,' he'd say later, smiling.
Spags. Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. One of the best in league history. 'A wizard,' nose tackle Mike Pennel later called him. In his team's defining moment of the season — up to this point at least — Spagnuolo dialed up a devastating play call, one he hadn't used all game, overloading the right side of the Bills' line with pressure and sending his best cornerback, McDuffie, on an all-out blitz.
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Risky? Sure. Some of Spags' own players admitted as much. Bring that type of heat against a quarterback like Allen and you're gambling that he's not going to turn it into the kind of chunk play that sinks your season.
Allen does that kind of thing as well as any quarterback in football. The Chiefs have learned this the hard way. They watched Allen bolt from the pocket on a game-clinching touchdown run in the fourth quarter of the Bills' Week 11 win — Kansas City's only real loss of the regular season.
'But that's who Spags is,' Chiefs safety Bryan Cook said. 'Life is about risk. The real question is: are you confident in the risk you're taking?'
Spags was. He always is.
'I just figured they do something to beat man (coverage),' Spagnuolo said after the Chiefs' 32-29 victory clinched their spot in Super Bowl LIX. If I'm going to have somebody coming, (McDuffie) is a good guy to have.'
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The Bills didn't see it coming. Neither did Tony Romo. efore the snap, the CBS color commentator told play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz, '(Allen) is going to have time here.'
The payoff came quickly and decisively: Allen was hurried from the pocket almost instantly. First it was safety Jordan Reid, untouched. Then it was McDuffie, also untouched. Finally it was Karlaftis, who forced the Bills quarterback to heave a prayer high into the Kansas City sky, then did his best to avoid falling on Allen 'to not get a dumbass penalty,' Karlaftis later said.
Spagnuolo had gotten three Chiefs defenders into the Bills' backfield in under two seconds and forced Allen into a borderline Hail Mary with the Super Bowl berth on the line. It was the defensive play call of the year.
'(Spagnuolo) waited all game to send the most exotic pressure,' Romo told Nantz.
Still, the Bills had a shot. Allen's heave hung in the air for several seconds.
Hicks lost it in the lights. I'm like, 'Holy sh—,'' he said. My heart dropped for a second.'
McDuffie gazed back. Everything was in slow motion,' he remembered.
All defensive tackle Chris Jones could think about was ending it. I'm tired,' he admitted later. Get us off the field!'
Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid had a shot at securing the ball, but it bounced off his hands. Five plays later, the celebration was on at Arrowhead.
After it was over, and while the confetti rained down — a staggering fifth trip to the Super Bowl clinched in the past six years — McDuffie sat on the bench next to Cook and soaked it all in. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He knows this isn't normal. He knows this isn't how the NFL works. Three years into his career, the 2022 first-round draft pick has still never lost a playoff game. All he knows are Super Bowls.
'This is something you're probably not gonna see again,' McDuffie said. You're not going to be able to go back-to-back-to-back.'
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As for the growing sense of Chiefs' fatigue, he hears it. t comes with the territory.
Growing up, McDuffie's older brother Tyler was a New England Patriots fan, the league's last dynasty before the Chiefs' reign began. I used to hate the Patriots,' McDuffie said. So being in that position to be the ones everyone's hating? It's a great feeling.'
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He smiled. Cigar smoke hung in the air while his teammates passed around the Lamar Hunt Trophy. The music thumped. Tickets to New Orleans had been punched.
One more win and the Chiefs will bask in a feeling no team in history has ever experienced.