Matt Nagy has a growing reputation as one of the most creative play callers in the NFL today. His willingness to try new things is one of the reasons for that. Nothing is off-limits. He'll draw on anything from old school Wing-T formations to college spread concepts and the classic West Coast style. It's a reason the Chicago Bears offense was so difficult to defend at times in 2018.
As it turns out, Nagy was the architect of one of the craziest plays in recent NFL history. One the league had never seen before that thrilled a national audience. It took place back on November 5th of 2017. He was offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs at the time, though he was not yet calling plays. They were trailing at the end of the first half in Dallas against the Cowboys.
The team desperately needed a spark. They were down 14-3 with two seconds left in the half. It was 56 yards to the end zone. Too far for quarterback Alex Smith to attempt a Hail Mary. So Nagy convinced head coach Andy Reid to try a little something different. Neither the Cowboys nor the fans watching had any clue what was about to happen.
How Matt Nagy crafted that play from his playing experience
People in the NFL had never seen it before, but Shane Stafford had. He was a former quarterback in the Arena Football League and is now an offensive coordinator for the Atlantic City Blackjacks. Arena teams ran plays just like that a lot as substitutes for long bombs.
Having grown up not far from Nagy, then the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator, and having watched him throughout his arena and NFL career, it was obvious where the play had come from. Through his time as an assistant with the Tampa Bay Storm and Washington Valor, he’d called a version of it himself.
“That is a staple play in arena football when it comes to end of half, or when I need a big play during a game,” Stafford said. “You have two route runners plan on being blockers, so it looks like a pass play but it’s not.
“The outdoor game is turning into the arena league, just with eleven guys.”
Apparently Nagy was eager to try more possibilities from the Arena playbook when he took over play calling later that season. So much so that Chiefs head coach Andy Reid had to tug the leash a little bit to get him to settle down. Now that he's a head coach himself though, there's nobody left to tell him to stop.
One can only imagine what other AFL nuggets the mad scientist has cooked up for this year.
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