WCF Film room: Teams finding success in a copycat league with these three west coast offense staples part 2 - Chiefs "wasp" passing concept

Dissecting the Chiefs "wasp" concept.

In the first part of this series, we covered the fake counter end around that a half dozen teams have run with varying degrees of success since 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan made it a staple of the 49ers offense. The next play we’ll look at is infamous in Super Bowl lore now as the play that broke the 49ers momentum in Super Bowl 54. The Kansas City Chiefs call this “wasp” and it is a nice tendency breaker for teams running dagger/deep crossers against single high coverage.

Wasp is a play the Chiefs run from either 2x2 or 3x1 receiver formations. In 2x2, the primary side is a deep dagger route from the number one receiver and an inside post corner route from the number two. In 3x1, the number one and number two receivers run the same routes as they do in 2x2 and with the number three receiver running a deep crosser to hold the safeties.

The Chiefs have only run this play a handful time since 2018, and it hasn’t been a very successful play for them since it’s a low percentage deep shot. But the one time it hugely successful came in Super Bowl 54. And it just happened to be the one time a 49ers defensive play call burned them.

The 49ers had played cover-3 buzz in third-and-long situations against trips instead of their usual cover-6 poach/solo call. The Chiefs capitalized on the information they gathered from a previous play in the first quarter on throw that quarterback coach Mike Kafka said they adjusted to.

The play gained 44 yards on a 3rd-and-15 and kept the Chiefs in the game, allowing them to score and cut the lead to 20-17.

The 49ers are in their disguised cover-3 with the buzz rotation by Tartt down away from the trips. This allows the defenders to rotate toward the trips but the free safety must compensate for the safety rotation down to the hook zone. Corner Emmanuel Moseley looks to be making some kind lock alert call that tells Ward he’s going to match #1 vertical instead of playing a zebra 1/3 midpoint.

At the snap, Ward vacates the hash and drops to the middle of the field as the routes develop. #1 goes vertical so Moseley matches the deep dig across. Tyreek Hill (No. 10) in the middle slot runs vertical and angles across, sells the post so Moseley stays on #1 and then cuts back toward the sideline while Ward is in mid turn to get back over to the far side of the field.

The pass rush is unable to get home and Mahomes has nearly four seconds from the snap until he throws it. He completes the pass for a 44 yard gain on third down. The Chiefs would cut the lead here and then eventually overtake the 49ers after they were unable to keep the chains moving.

The above cut-ups show the Chiefs running wasp either out of 2x2 or 3x1.

Wasp in 2020

A few teams have run “wasp” this season with success. Both Ravens and the Seahawks have used it for big gains with the Seahawks scoring a touchdown off of it. A similar version of the play can also be found in the playbooks of the Packers and Vikings, who both ran the play against each other in week one, and the Vikings running for two touchdowns this season.

Ravens dagger smash

In week 1, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson went deep to speedster Marquise Brown for 47 yards on the “wasp” route against Cleveland.

As more and more teams look to rob underneath the deep crosser or the dagger route combination from single high, wasp is the answer to isolate the safety.

The middle linebacker sees the deep crosser stem from Brown after reading play action and runs to undercut it and provide underneath help for the safety and potentially make a throw harder for the quarterback.

But Brown stems back outside on the corner route leaving him isolated with the safety. On the outside, Myles Boykin (No. 80) occupies the corner with his deep dig route, preventing the corner from sinking deep under Brown’s route.

Safety Andrew Sendejo (No. 23) recovers nicely to play the deep route from Brown but Jackson throws a perfect deep pass out ahead and over the top of Brown away from the safety for a 47-yard gain.

Seahawks “76” concept

The play design made another debut in a nationally televised game between the Seahawks and Patriots in week two. The Seahawks are not explicitly a west coast offense team and run a more “Air Coryell” offense with the route naming convention as “76” with 7 designated as the corner route and 6 being the dig route (I’m not 100% sure what they actually call it).

In that game, Seahawks receiver D.K. Metcalf went deep on the wasp route with corner Stephon Gilmore in coverage and scored on a 54-yard touchdown throw from quarterback Russell Wilson.

The Patriots are in cover-1, indicated by running back Carlos Hyde motioning into the backfield from his wide left spot with Gilmore in man coverage over Metcalf in the slot as the #2 receiver to the trips.

Metcalf takes off angling across the field like he’s going to run a deep crossing route. The deep safety turns to run that direction anticipating Metcalf is going to cross deep to the other hash.

Gilmore undercuts the crosser as well thinking they’ll funnel Metcalf to the safety but Metcalf cuts to the corner and runs away from Gilmore.

The pass is a little under-thrown by Wilson and allows Gilmore time to recover but Metcalf out-muscles him at the catch point as Gilmore falls down haplessly. Metcalf sprints into the end zone for the touchdown.

The Seahawks have thrown this route at least three other times between last season and this season as well with varying degrees of success, the most recent being against the Rams in week 10 but for no gain.

Gary Kubiak and the play action pylon corner route

The play action-heavy west coast offense teams in the Mike Shanahan lineage have their own version of the deep corner shot called “PS 17 X pylon.”

Under offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak this season, the Vikings have run the pylon corner three times for two completions and two touchdowns. They like the play once they get passed mid field as a deep shot to the end zone. And it’s paid off.

Receiver Justin Jefferson is lined up in the slot running the pylon corner route. Outside of him is receiver Adam Thielen running the comeback route.

The Cowboys are in cover-1 coverage with a single deep safety, perfect for running this concept.

Jefferson sprints toward the near hash like he’s running a crossing route. This gets the safety to backpedal toward the middle of the field.

Thielen reaches depth and sits on the comeback, leaving Jefferson isolated with the safeties in coverage.

Jefferson gets open by stacking the defender behind him before he cuts to the front pylon on the corner route. This is all the separation he needs against his defender as the safety is nowhere over the top to help out. Jefferson is deeper than the safety as Cousins throws a perfect pass out ahead of him for the touchdown.

In part 3, the series will look at the design and usage of the play action “leak” concept.

Feature image: Seattle Seahawks