Technically, the call on the field was some condensed variation of a play called Mesh Follow or Mesh Traffic. In this iteration, there was a wide receiver, Khalil Shakir, lined up as a running back and a second running back ballooning into the flat. There were wide receivers and tight ends bunched at the line of scrimmage, with one wide receiver dragging to the left to follow Shakir toward one sideline, running a similar route, and two wide receivers from the right sprinting in the opposite direction.
The call on Josh Allen’s game-winning 26-yard touchdown run was brilliant because, to me, it picked up on the one thing that opponents of the Kansas City Chiefs have failed to realize time and time again. They have one of the smartest defenses on the planet and are one of the best tackle-in-space teams in the NFL. All of the legal traffic created by these conflicting routes peeled off valuable Chiefs defenders one after another and drew them into assignments that took their eyes off the quarterback. It prevented any of them from reading the play, reacting and making a move on the ball. Allen took the fourth-and-2 play to the house, giving the Buffalo Bills a 30–21 lead. That was the final score.
