Music City Miracle - Analysis

Analysis

As Titans' coach Jeff Fisher pointed out, the original objective of the play was not to achieve a direct score (a touchdown); it was to have the receiver (Dyson) advance the ball into the range of Del Greco, the Titans’ placekicker. To do this, Dyson would have to advance the ball to a down-field spot well within the kicker’s range. Fisher later stated that as the play continued with Dyson getting closer to the Bills’ end zone, he was concerned that Dyson would be tackled without scoring with no time remaining.

As the play was drawn up, the receiver of the kickoff was also supposed to execute the lateral. The Titans' tight end, Frank Wycheck, was supposed to receive the ball and throw the lateral. However, Wycheck was completely out of position to receive the kickoff.

Wycheck was between Dyson (on the left side facing downfield) and Lorenzo Neal (on the right side), with Wycheck closer to Neal. Neal caught the ball, turned to his left, and began running toward Wycheck. Neal then met Wycheck (who had turned to run toward the right side of the field) on the run, and handed the ball to him. Wycheck, continued to run laterally toward right side of the field, knowing that the play required him to execute a lateral (across the field to Dyson), to the left side of the field. Wycheck continued his run to the right sideline, so it appeared to be a developing single reverse (by Neal and Wycheck) end-around run to the right sideline (by Wycheck). Just before reaching the sideline, Wycheck abruptly stopped, by planting his passing foot and pivoting to his left. Once he'd aligned himself to throw the lateral (i.e., a pass which does not advance in yardage down field), he threw a low pass (across the whole field) to Dyson. Dyson scooped the pass up ankle-high, turned to his left and began running straight down field.

Wycheck's initial move was a credible play in and of itself, as were the Bill's actions a correct defensive assumption. Wycheck was a Pro Bowl-caliber tight end; and, with good blocking, he posed the very real threat of advancing the ball to the outer limit of the range of Del Greco for a winning field goal, prior to the expiration of regulation time. Because of this, Buffalo’s entire kicking team (except for the place kicker), shifted to the right sideline of the field, either to tackle Wycheck or to force him out of bounds and outside of Del Greco's kicking range.

It was this, that turned out to be the decisive mistake on the part of Buffalo’s kicking team. Their total concentration on Wycheck’s right sideline run, left not only the left side-line of the field undefended (all the way to the end-zone); it also meant that all of the defensive-backs on the kicking team were completely out of position to make any serious attempt to over-haul and catch a starting NFL wide receiver (Dyson). Not only were they too far away from him, their closing intercept angle on him (because they were on the other side of the field) was simply too wide for them to close the gap before Dyson reached Buffalo’s end-zone. Titans coach Jeff Fisher had not assumed that the kicking team would make such a critical error; he was concerned that as Dyson closed on the Bill’s end-zone, he would be tackled by the Bills' defensive backs near the goal line after the time clock ran down to zero.