We’ve all seen it a thousand times. It’s fourth down. The ball is somewhere around midfield. The coach keeps the offense on the field, but after a series of hard counts where the quarterback tries to get the defense to jump offsides, he calls timeout and the team punts the ball. It’s a semi-regular occurrence in NFL games, except this past Sunday, the Chiefs completely changed the script and unexpectedly ran a play that resulted in a first down. After the game, Patrick Mahomes credited his work in State Farm commercials for helping him pull it off.
The play in question happened at the start of the second quarter. It was fourth down and a foot at the Chiefs’ own 40 yard line. Mahomes went through the normal fake hikes during his snapcount to try and get the Raiders to jump offsides. He then shrugged his shoulders and shouted, “This fucking never fucking works, man” at the sidelines. The announcers laughed, as his f-bombs were picked up by the on-field microphones, but then he unexpectedly snapped the ball and handed it off to Kareem Hunt, who ran for a first down.
