No matter what you think about the type of season that Kansas City Chiefs WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling had in 2023, he came up big for his team during the postseason.

Before reading this story, you’ll probably think about his 16-yard touchdown reception at the end of the third quarter of Super Bowl LVIII against the San Francisco 49ers as his biggest contribution. However, his biggest contribution came in the huddle during overtime ahead of the Chiefs’ crucial fourth-and-1 play on the game-winning drive.

Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes recently joined esteemed sportswriter Peter King to talk about Super Bowl LVIII on his podcast. When he was questioned about the play call on fourth-and-1, Mahomes volunteered some information that may have never seen the light of day otherwise.

“I wish I could take all the credit, but it was kind of crazy,” Mahomes told King. “So, we were going through our plays and we were trying to decide if we were going to run or pass and we had a couple of run plays dialed up. We had already had a lot of short-yardage situations in the game and we were trying to find that perfect play.”

Mahomes, of course, felt the perfect play might be a passing play. It reminds you a bit of Gene Hackman’s great line in “The Replacements” where his character, Jimmy McGinty, tells Keanu Reeves’ Shane Falco, “Winners always want the ball when the game is on the line.”

“I was thinking of passes because I wanted to pass it  and have the ball in my hands,” Mahomes continued. “It was actually MVS (Marquez Valdes-Scantling), who came up to me in the huddle and on the side and said, ‘Hey, let’s go slot tease.’ Which is wild because it’s not really a play designed for him, it’s a play designed for Travis (Kelce) and Rashee (Rice). When he said it, it clicked for me, I was like, ‘That’s it! That’s perfect.'”

Valdes-Scantling didn’t call his own number, but he recognized a play that could work at that moment and thought to share it. Mahomes took King through the play and why it gave him that eureka moment.

“It’s kind of a bootleg play, where I fake a run and I get on the perimeter and there’s kind of a throw to Trav as he’s sliding across two guys,” Mahomes explained. “I think it was MVS and Rashee going across the middle trying to cause some disturbance, some interference-type stuff, so that Trav can outflank (the defenders). I like (the play) because it gave me the option to throw to Travis. It gave me the option to throw it to Rashee. It gave me the option to run. I told coach, ‘Let’s call this.’ That type of play, you want it to be man coverage. I told coach, ‘If it’s not there, I’m going to run for it.’ . . . It was zone coverage and once I got outside and saw room to run, I just went and got it.”

Had it been man coverage, Mahomes says he would have likely dumped the ball off to Kelce for a short gain. Instead, he got a chance to get it done with his legs and keep the drive alive in overtime. Without a veteran like Valdes-Scantling in the huddle, they might have never got to the right play. We’ll never know if that’s the case, but for now, the postseason legend of Valdes-Scantling grows.