The Chiefs Found a Way to Weaponize Noah Gray

After a big contract extension, Noah Gray immediately proves his worth in a new look Chiefs' offense.

On Thursday night before the Chiefs and Ravens kicked off the NFL season, the reigning Super Bowl Champions made a big announcement. The Chiefs had agreed to terms with fourth year tight end Noah Gray and given him a three-year contract extension worth $18 million and $10.1 million guaranteed. This made Gray the 21st highest paid TE in the NFL and one of the highest paid back-up TEs.

Gray has been a useful rotational player for the Chiefs over his first three seasons, filling in for Travis Kelce when needed and being a second move-TE. That said he had never averaged over 20 yards per catch for a season, was a low volume target earner, and while a quality blocker on the move, he was far from a dominant in-line blocker. The contract isn’t a crazy amount of money but the initial reaction was a bit split given his production and efficiency so far in the NFL.

Then the opening game with the Ravens kicked off and it was evident early in the game… the Chiefs had a very specific plan in mind for Noah Gray. Andy Reid and the brain trust went to the drawing board and designed a handful of concepts to actively weaponize Noah Gray rather than just rotating him for hyper-specific plays that work off his strengths.

Noah Gray had gone from a useful rotational player to an actual weapon for the Chiefs offense, let’s take a look how that happened.

New Look Noah Gray

The Chiefs have always understood Gray’s strengths as a reliable catcher of the football in traffic as well as a good blocker out in space on the move. They’ve also understood where he is still developing as a route runner or blocker on the line of scrimmage. They have always emphasized the former and limited the latter but done so in relatively obvious ways. Against the Ravens, they went out of their way to not just use Gray in those same advantageous positions but got creative in how they developed that attack.

Run Blocking on the Move

The GH Counter play above is the basic, common way the Chiefs have used Gray as a blocker. They get him on the move post-snap and allow him to be either a lead blocker through the hole, used him to kick-out an edge defender opening up the hole, or inserted him into the backside of a zone run to block the backside linebacker. He’s solid in that role in terms of getting to the right spots and making adjustments on the move but he doesn’t always create the most movement at the point of contact.

This year the Chiefs’ have come to the table with a fresh take on the GH Counter run that utilizes Gray’s - and Travis Kelce’s - mobility even more. By starting the play with jet motion from a tight end, it creates movement along a defense to account for the changing of personnel and offensive strength. That’s when the “trick” occurs. Instead of continuing across the formation, Gray slams on the brakes right at the quarterback, flips his hips around, and tucks in behind a pulling offensive guard coming from across the formation.

From that point on, it’s the same as the Counter run above but the process taken to get there changes a ton of the play. First the box defenders have to respect the jet motion in case the play works quickly out to the backside of the run. This requires either a widening of the backside defenders to account for it or movement from the second level to follow suit. Either way, defenders are moving away from the direction of the run.