If the Texans’ trick play Sunday night looked familiar to Bears fans, it was.
On first-and-goal from the Patriots’ 6, quarterback Deshaun Watson took a shotgun snap and handed the ball off to running back Duke Johnson, who gave it to wide receiver Deandre Hopkins, running left to right on a reverse. As he was about to be tackled, Hopkins threw an option pitch to Watson, who ran for a score.
The play was precisely what the Bears ran on a two-point conversion against the Vikings on Oct. 9, 2017. Quarterback Mitch Trubisky handed off to Jordan Howard, who gave the ball to Zach Miller. He pitched it back to Trubisky, who ran into the end zone.
“I think it was Chicago that did it,” Watson said after the game. “Me and [quarterback] AJ McCarron were looking at it, watching film one day. And we were like, ‘Actually we can probably run that. And then ‘Hop’ saw it and ‘Hop,’ of course he’s like, ‘Let’s do it let’s do it.’”
The Bears, like all teams, collect trick plays.
On Sunday, quarterback Chase Daniel tracked down Nagy to show him video of the Dolphins’ touchdown against the Eagles, in which the punter ran left and shoveled a pass to the kicker out of a swinging gate formation.
“It looked pretty crazy,” Nagy said.
Nagy keeps film of potential trick plays in the video room.
“We, like, name them crazy names so that even coaches within the building don’t know where they’re at,” he said. “We’ve even gone as far as whiting out the font. You know how like on the computer you can put all letters in white? But we know it’s there, but it’s really not because it’s white. We do that too. We do some crazy things. But it’s across the league.”
Why hide it from your own staff?
“You’d be surprised,” Nagy said. “Once one person knows, then two people know. I want nobody to know. I just want to know.”
