Chiefs’ pivotal SB play ‘Wasp’ added to ‘Madden 20’

In case you haven’t been on the internet in the last 24 hours, a specific play called by the Chiefs is all the rage.

It has its own nine-and-a-half-minute segment on the NFL Films-produced NFL Turning Point (a phenomenal show, by the way). It has spawned a T-shirt (because of course it has). And now, it’s going to be in Madden NFL 20.

The play is known as Wasp, a term that comes at the end of a much longer playcall, and it produced success in two significant games for the Chiefs in the last two years: the 2018 AFC Championship Game and Super Bowl LIV.

It calls for longer pass protection, because while Sammy Watkins runs a deep square in and Travis Kelce carries a middle defender with a crossing route that includes a stutter step, Tyreek Hill appears to be running a deep post — that is, until he breaks in the opposite direction, turning it into a post corner. The play has twice spun a deep middle safety around too late to recover, and thanks to Watkins’ route, the deep third defender on that side is usually lured inside, not recognizing Hill has changed direction to enter his deep coverage responsibility.

Just watch this video. It does a fantastic job of explaining what happened (shout out to producer Greg Smith):

After the breakdown went viral Thursday, Tyreek Hill himself took to Twitter to try to get the play added to Madden. It worked.

The play might look familiar to Madden players who run the Chiefs’ playbook, or really any playbook with more than just a few shotgun sets. It’s similar in nature to that of a similar call: Dagger, which comes out of what is almost the same formation (the alignment of the running back is the only difference) and calls for a deep square in and inside crosser. The lone difference in the actual play: Hill’s position runs a go route instead of the deep post corner he runs in Wasp.

In fact, there isn’t a play with this type of combination in Madden, which is why the game’s developers had to add it in after Super Bowl LIV. As usual with sports simulation video games, the art is imitating life. And life sure was beautiful on Sunday for the Chiefs.

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