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Eric Woodyard, ESPN
CHICAGO — Earlier in the week, Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson approached veteran quarterback Jared Goff with an odd request coming off a tough loss to the Buffalo Bills.
“It started on Monday with Ben asking me ‘if he thought I could actually fumble on purpose and pick it back up?’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know about that’ and we kind of got off that pretty quickly,'” Goff recalled.
By Sunday, it all made sense as the Lions celebrated their first 13-win season in franchise history with a 34-17 win over the Bears at Soldier Field, with Goff perfectly executing Johnson’s “stumble bum” trick play.
During the third quarter, Goff’s executed a fake stumble touchdown play to tight end Sam LaPorta. Both Goff and running back Jahmyr Gibbs appeared to fake a botched snap, which led to a 21-yard LaPorta touchdown at 12:18 to put Detroit ahead, 34-14, and help seal the win.
“So, we called it before in the game, but we killed it because I guess it was a certain look,” said Gibbs, who ended with 154 scrimmage yards and a rushing touchdown. “But then we did it again a couple of drives later. I didn’t know if it was going to work or not, but I was hoping.”
The Goff and Gibbs coordinated trip on LaPorta’s touchdown was a designed trip. It was inspired by an old play that Johnson saw of Green Bay QB Jordan Love actually dropping the snap against Chicago before recovering the ball to pull off a big, 37-yard completion to Luke Musgrave on Sept. 10, 2023. The pivotal fourth quarter play led to a 38-20 victory against the Bears last season.
It was one of countless trick plays called by Johnson, who is expected to interview for the Bears’ head coaching vacancy, sources confirmed to ESPN’s Courtney Cronin, during Detroit’s biggest road win versus the Bears since a 32-7 win in September 1997.
“The genesis was that’s a good play for that scheme,” said Goff, who went 23-32 with 336 passing yards and 3 touchdowns to zero interceptions.
“It is, but they’re in tune with it on defense that, that is a good play and it’s hard to get that on them because those linebackers are so dang good at seeing it develop.”
Goff said they worked on the play at least 3-4 times this week during practice. Lions running back Craig Reynolds also said that the Lions sideline was in on the fun, too, and everyone yelled “BALL!” when Goff and Gibbs stumbled.
“Sell it 100 percent,” Reynolds said.
Gibbs says he’s no longer surprised by where Johnson draws inspiration from as he’s developing his playbook. Although Johnson is locked in on leading the Lions to a Super Bowl under head coach Dan Campbell, he is expected to be on the radar again this offseason as a top head coaching candidate.
His creative play calling, like the “stumble bum,” is yet another example of his offensive brilliance that has earned respect among players.
Detroit’s offense has put up at least 400-plus yards of total offense in three of the last four weeks, while setting franchise record for most points in a season (493).
“The stuff he comes up with every game is crazy,” Gibbs said of Johnson. “You don’t see really stuff like that only if you’re in college. In college, they have all of those explosive plays and stuff basically.”
ESPN senior NFL reporter Kalyn Kahler contributed to this report.