FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — When Bill Belichick pulled something new from his bag of tricks last week, some wondered whether the three-time Super Bowl champion coach had found another way to bend the rules.
The New England Patriots were creative and intentionally deceptive, but using four offensive linemen isn’t illegal in the NFL.
The tactic worked and angered the Baltimore Ravens and their coach, John Harbaugh. There’s no telling what wrinkles Belichick and the Patriots (13-4) are planning for Sunday’s AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts (13-5).
“It’s a situation that I saw another team use, kind of,” Belichick said, explaining the unique formation. “Then we talked about it and thought about ways maybe to put some pressure on the defense with that concept of having more receivers on the field than were actually eligible. To make them ineligible instead of making an ineligible guy eligible, to go the other way around. We came up with a few ideas.”
Got that? OK, here’s a simple summary of what the Patriots did for three plays against Baltimore:
• Right guard Josh Kline came off the field.
• Backup tight end Michael Hoomanawanui entered and lined up where the left tackle traditionally plays but declared himself eligible.
• Left tackle Nate Solder moved inside to left guard.
• Running back Shane Vereen entered and lined up in the slot, but was technically the right tackle and therefore ineligible.
That created confusion because the Baltimore defense covered Vereen, thinking he was going to run a pattern. Hooman- awanui was allowed to run freely down the seam.
Hoomanawanui caught two passes, for 16 and 14 yards. Harbaugh drew an unsportsmanlike penalty for going on the field to argue that his defense should have had more time to identify eligible receivers before the snap. After the penalty, Tom Brady tossed a TD pass to Rob Gronkowski to cut the Ravens’ lead to 28-21.
“Nobody’s ever seen that before,” Harbaugh said. “It’s not something anybody’s ever done before.”
