Inside Chase Brown’s Unscripted Game-Winning Home Run Off Bengals’ New-Look Run Game

The Giants had switched it up Sunday. Coming into the game they had played their defensive ends outside the tight end. But on this night, they were playing inside and coming across the face. Pollack came up with a heavily-repped play from the training camp playbook and one they had used for a successful rush during the season.

He clicked in with Taylor and offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher on the headsets to get their thoughts. They liked the play that was not in Sunday night’s game plan but is quite familiar.

Pollack got in front of his linemen to tell them the play was now in play. Also on the headsets, the offensive position coaches gave their players a heads-up that there was a new play on the sheet. Tight ends coach James Casey, a former NFL player who demands assignment-sound players, already had his guys wired for anything run or pass. Running backs coach Justin Hill knew he didn’t have to review it with Brown and Moss. No matter who was in, each knew the assignment cold.

“We repped it so much in training camp. I just told them this one is what was coming up,” Hill says. “They knew exactly what it was. What the read was. What the track was. Not a shock it came up. We’ve had plenty of time on task on that play.”

It turned out it was Brown in the huddle on second-and-three from the Giants 30 when Burrow emerged with Taylor’s call after the break from the two-minute warning. Hill stuck with Brown even though the second-year speed artist had fumbled the ball out of bounds the snap before.

There were a lot of wheels churning. In the third quarter, Hill had watched one of his backs lose a fumble for the first time in three years when Moss got jostled in the red zone. Now he saw Brown almost lose another one. But Hill stayed with his plan to make sure Moss got another carry after Brown got the next carry.

Brown immediately responded and they didn’t need another carry.

The play called for the rookie All to flash in motion from right to left. Sample followed him as center Ted Karras fired back a shot-gun snap to Burrow. All tied up Brian Burns, the active backer who had been a problem on the edge all night, and Sample swallowed the trigger man in one of the inside gaps, linebacker Micah McFadden.

With the line leaning left and the tight ends whipping right, it looked like Brown was going with the line, but the play calls for Brown to cut back underneath the tight ends.

“What’s interesting about this play, when you insert a tight end, you create a gap,” Pollack says. “When you insert another tight end, you’ve created two gaps. It puts (the Giants) in a bind. They’re short.”

Now it was Chase’s wheels that were spinning. He saw safety Jason Pinnock had overrun the play reacting to the tight ends. He also saw that McFadden had been taken, the tell for Chase to stick his foot in the ground off of Sample’s No. 89.