Allen Park — Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid has developed a reputation for taking play calls from unusual places. This week, he shared a story about how he plucked a play design from a janitor.
“I took one from a janitor one time at Green Bay,” Reid said. “He goes, ‘I got this play for you.’ And he kept telling me this over and over. Finally, I said, ‘OK, here’s a card, draw up the play.’ And he drew up the play, and I go, ‘Dang, that’s pretty good.'”
Reid also confirmed he eventually ran the play, scoring a touchdown just before the half in an unidentified game.
Ben Johnson doesn’t have anything close to Reid’s resume or reputation, but the Lions offensive coordinator shares Reid’s spirit for leaving no stone unturned when developing a game plan. One of Johnson’s strengths has been his collaborative process, utilizing the entire coaching staff’s ideas when shaping the team’s offensive scheme as well as the weekly plan.
Asked the most unusual source of a play design, Johnson smiled and shared an odd story that transpired during training camp last month.
“I think we were practicing against Jacksonville just a couple weeks ago, it’s the special teams period and one of the officials walked up to me,” Johnson said. “He had — I still have the diagram in my office — it’s a piece of (paper), he’s got 11 guys written up. He literally took the entire special teams period, it was over five minutes, talking about how this play would work out. That’s probably been the coolest setting that I’ve been in. I mean, we’re right in the middle of practice and he went off on a tangent. It’s a good idea. It’s a little bit out of the box. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it happen before.”
Johnson said if he ever runs the play and it’s successful, he’ll be sure to let everyone know.
“I have to give credit where credit is due,” Johnson said.
Return plans
With Jameson Williams suspended the first six games, the Lions will likely need to lean a little heavier on Kalif Raymond in a receiving role. In the past, special teams coordinator Dave Fipp has expressed a reluctance to use key offensive or defensive pieces in a return role, but he confirmed Saturday that he has no intention of removing Raymond from his punt return job a year after he earned second-team All-Pro honors.
“I feel pretty comfortable in saying, everyone kind of knows, Kalif is our punt returner and I would see him doing that, barring he doesn’t have enough juice in the tank,” Fipp said.
As for the kickoff return job, that’s more up in the air. The Lions tried six different players in that role during the preseason and had good success overall. But only two of those players, Khalil Dorsey and Antoine Green, made the 53-man roster and neither is assured to be active on game days to start the season.
“I think the easiest way to say it for me, it really comes down to how can we get the best 11 guys (on the field)?” Fipp said. “It’s not always the returner, right? If we had some guy who was exceptional, maybe. … Sometimes it’s not which returner do we want? It’s more like, who do we want blocking for the guy? And so some of it’ll come down to that, but I’m excited about who we have.”
Deep thoughts
Speaking of Williams, his suspension, along with the departure of DJ Chark in free agency, has left the Lions without an obvious deep threat to stretch the field. But after being among the leaders in explosive pass plays last season, both of the 20-plus and 40-plus-yard varieties, quarterback Jared Goff isn’t concerned.
“Obviously you mentioned DJ, he gave us something there, and then Jameson has to sit out, but no, I think there’s (other) ways to do it,” Goff said. “You don’t have to have a 4.2 (second 40-yard dash) guy in order to do it. Teams do it all across the league without 4.2 guys. So being able to find those ways, (via) the scheme, open it up and be able to utilize our different skill sets at receiver, and even tight end and running back, to create those mismatches and make those explosives.”
Johnson echoed his quarterback’s comments about not limiting the perception a vertical pass game needs to come from the team’s receivers.
“I think that can come from a number of different positions,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be the receiver spot. I feel comfortable with what we’ve done here in training camp, that we’ve got plenty of guys that can stretch the field vertically. So I’m not really concerned about that early in the season here. I think we’re going to be just fine in being selective when we do target the deep area.”
Injury update
The Lions were close to full strength for Saturday’s practice with only defensive tackle Isaiah Buggs missing from action. He had exited the preseason finale after making a tackle with an unknown injury. The team isn’t required to release an official injury report until Monday.
jdrogers@detroitnews.com
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