Remember the 2018 season? It was an entire calendar year that served as the coming-out party for Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and put the entire NFL on notice that a changing of the guard was imminent— the old being the New England Patriots, the new being the Chiefs, led by head coach Andy Reid.
The Patriots did not go quietly into that good night; the dynasty raged, and thanks to an offside penalty courtesy of Chiefs edge rusher Dee Ford, New England went on to win one last Super
Bowl, before the all-time run faded into the history books.
The Patriots ended the 2018 season on a red zone efficiency heater. New England scored touchdowns on 76.92% of red zone opportunities over their last three games that year. The only teams that fared better over that span of time were the Dallas Cowboys, the Chiefs, and the Detroit Lions.
Overall, the Patriots finished in the top half of the league, scoring touchdowns on 62.86% of red zone possessions.
Here’s the importance of the trip down memory lane: the Chiefs’ newest coaching addition, wide receivers coach Chad O’Shea, held the same position in New England, along with leading the responsibility of red-zone game plans that year.
At the time, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels praised O’Shea for his insights and attention to detail.
“Chad’s unbelievable. He’s one of the best assistant coaches I’ve ever had the chance to work with,” McDaniels said. “His players are always incredibly well prepared. He’s very detailed. They love playing for him. He’s got a great personality. He’s a good communicator. He’s incredibly responsible for any and all of our success in the red zone. He does a lot of that work and prepares us well for that situation in the game…”
Former Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman recently expanded on this during his podcast, Games With Names. In this clip, Edelman explains in great detail the effort O’Shea put into making sure his wide receivers were prepared for any situations they might encounter throughout the game.
“He’d (O’Shea) have individual 30-play cuts up of each corner,” said Edelman. “Like highlighted examples of what their strengths were. Highlighted examples of what their weaknesses were, or what they struggled with. So, say like you have a corner, and he was a really big guy, he’d show his offhand jam, how this guy did it three or four times, he would look at his stance… so you’re looking individually at that specific guy with the receiver coach.”
Then, throughout the week, Edelman said O’Shea would focus on specific downs and distances each day. Fridays were dedicated to red zone, two-minute drill, and situational football.
“I always leaned on Coach O’Shea,” Edelman shared. “That’s how you determined if you had a great coach… they always gave you great cut-ups that helped you with your game.”
This isn’t an isolated season: since 2007, on 10 different occasions, O’Shea assisted with a top-10 offense in terms of red-zone scoring percentage.
Under offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, the Chiefs’ red-zone scoring has been a point of frustration: Kansas City failed to crack the top 10 in red-zone conversion rate in each of the last three seasons.
Now, no one is saying O’Shea has a magic wand that will make all of the Chiefs’ red-zone woes disappear, but one thing is certain: he will make sure the wide receivers are ready for the moment when it arrives.
