Play Of The Game: Charles kickoff return TD

From Arrowhead Stadium

It does not happen often that a kickoff gets returned for a touchdown; especially for the Kansas City Chiefs. In 49 previous seasons of football, there had been 18 kick return scores by the Texans-Chiefs. That’s about one every three seasons or so.

The Chiefs were due. They were long overdue. They had gone 70 games without a kickoff returned for a touchdown.

Jamaal Charles took care of that. All he needed was 16 seconds. It just so happens it was the first 16 seconds of Sunday’s game between the Chiefs and Steelers.

It was the first play and it was the play of the game: a 97-yard return for a touchdown to got the Chiefs on the scoreboard first and let everyone know, including themselves, that they had come to compete with the Steelers. In the end, they not only did that, but they won the game, 27-24 in overtime.

In the week of preparation for the game, the Chiefs had talked a lot about the Steelers and their kickoff coverage unit. Pittsburgh was ranked 29th in the league, giving up an average return of 25.9 yards. More importantly, they had already given up three return TDs, and they had all come in the previous four games.

Make that four out of five.

“We talked all week about how specials teams had to make a play and how their kick (coverage) team wasn’t all that good,” said Charles. “People had been scoring on them, so coach was talking about how we needed to take one to the house this week.”

Charles settled under Jeff Reed’s kickoff on the left side of the field. The Chiefs had set up a right return, so Charles had to scamper sideways a bit to get in line with the blocking scheme. Once he did, he turned the corner and he was gone.

“I saw him coming my way and I just made sure I got a hat on my guy,” said TE Leonard Pope, who was on the far right of the second line of kick return blockers. “All you have to do is give him an alley and he’ll go.”

Also on the right side of that second line of blockers was OLB Andy Studebaker.

“That one was a long time coming because we’ve been so close,” said Studebaker. “I hate when you hear players and coaches say we were one block away from springing something, but sometimes it’s true. We had been close.”

Once Charles got through the right side, an alley opened up and he had to break one tackle before he was off to the races.

“I guess they all just bit in where the ball was at and I just kept running and everyone just kept on their assignments and it opened up,” said Charles. “It was just perfect, perfect blocks. I broke a tackle and just went to the house. ”

It was the first Chiefs kickoff return for a touchdown since October 2, 2005 when Dante Hall returned one 96 yards against Philadelphia. Other than Hall and Tamarick Vanover, who combined had 10 TDs, Charles is the first Chiefs player to score on a kickoff return since RB Jon Vaughn took one back 91 yards in 1994 against Miami.