The Kansas City Chiefs tried to get a little creative with their usage of veteran TE Blake Bell in the divisional round against the Buffalo Bills.
It was third-and-1 from the Bills’ 7-yard line and the Chiefs were up by two points. Patrick Mahomes motioned out of shotgun and put tight end Blake Bell under center. It looked like it was going to be a patented QB sneak play that they’ve run with Bell all season long. Instead, they ran a QB sprint option to the boundary side of the field. Bell pitched the ball to Jerick McKinnon, who lost three yards on the play.
Yes, Bell could have done a better job pressing the line of scrimmage and forcing Bills defenders to crash down. The problem is that all of Bell’s carries this season have been in short-yardage situations and Bell is too far removed from his glory days.
So why don’t the Chiefs remind people?
If you’re going to use Bell as a runner, let him be “The Belldozer.”
look, if you're gonna put blake bell behind center, let the belldozer do what he does best pic.twitter.com/eLOzDInWRM
— Matt Henderson (@KWCHMatt) January 24, 2022
That said if you’re going to have a designed QB run for Bell, why not run a power play like those that Buffalo ran against Kansas City with Josh Allen? Steve Spagnuolo himself said it puts your defense at a numbers disadvantage and you saw exactly how tough it was to stop just a week ago.