KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The foundation of the play is a “hug rush,” followed by an add-on rush, a combination that will make a little more sense in a moment. The important thing for now is the Chiefs put a variation of the concept into their playbook in training camp.

And on Sunday, Nick Bolton, the proverbial green-dot defensive play-caller for five years, verbalized a call that he’s never used before.

Not once.

And now? It is responsible for the most pivotal defensive play of the opening month of this Chiefs season.

The Chiefs beat the Ravens 37-20, a second-half laugher that might make you forget the Ravens actually had a better than 50% win probability stretching midway into the second quarter. They were at 76%, per rbsdm.com, late into the first.

Then came the play-call.

Then came the brand new play-call.

On a first-down snap, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson dropped 14 yards behind the line of scrimmage, and linebacker Drue Tranquill darted up the middle on a blitz. He had the hug rush assignment — blitzing the running back if he didn’t release for a route. And Derrick Henry did not release, instead staying home to block.

Jackson still had plenty of space to operate as Tranquill engaged Henry, but then came the add-on rush, a surprise blitz from another linebacker who had disguised it well: Bolton.

Jackson was clearly surprised by the pressure suddenly in his face, and despite nearly all of his receivers out on routes to his left, he turned and blindly threw back to his right. The third linebacker on the field, Leo Chenal, made a one-handed interception. His first career pick was a beauty.

A game-changing play.

From an ever-changing playbook.

“We put a new wrinkle in,” Bolton told me. “That was something we haven’t done since I’ve been here honestly.”

We need to add a phrase to that quote: They haven’t run that in a game.

The Chiefs have run the play in practice, or at least put in on the white board, for a few months now. It has a couple of other layers to it. But this week was the first time that defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo plugged it in a weekly game plan.

“You study it, study it, study but don’t run it. And then, bow,” Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie told me. “That’s what I love, bro. Every time he pulls a random call out of nowhere, it hits.”

Which is the larger point, right?

Nobody can figure out what the Chiefs defense will do next — not even the guys in the room. And when they are surprised by a play call or two, what do you expect is spinning through the mind of a quarterback?

Consider the film Lamar Jackson examined this week. After the Chargers silenced the Chiefs pass rush in the opener, Spagnuolo decided to bring all-out blitzes a week later. He sent an extra rusher toward Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts on 60% of his dropbacks, the second-highest blitz rate any team has used in any game this season, per Next Gen Stats.

That worked. The Eagles had their second-worst offensive yardage total in a decade. So, naturally, Spagnuolo completely reversed course a week later, blitzing the Giants on just 15.8% of Russell Wilson’s dropbacks. Well, that worked too.

What next? He decided to turn Bolton into the league’s most effective blitzer, leaning once on a blitz he’d never once used before.

Bolton rushed the passer 10 times Sunday, generating a career-high five pressures. Here’s the real kicker: He was left unblocked on all five of those pressures, which totals the second most unblocked pressures by a single player in any game in seven years, per Next Gen Stats.

He got home on the Chenal interception, which ranks as most important play in either of the Chiefs’ two victories (as measured by expected points added).

But Bolton got home on another big snap, too. The Ravens kept the offense on the field late in the second quarter, a fourth-and-1 play. Jackson dropped back to pass, but the play just never developed.

Why? Wouldn’t you know it, Bolton came streaking through the middle of the line.

Unblocked.

Jackson threw it away on fourth down, almost like an instinctual reaction of panic. It provided a most fitting image: a defensive coordinator putting one of the very best quarterbacks in football in a blender — and with the players to do it.

“When you think about plays like that — that we never run and all of a sudden he springs it on us,” McDuffie said. “he trusts us.

“We got smart guys, man.”

Three weeks.

Three contrasting game plans.

Three shutdown performances. If not for a Ravens 71-yard run in garbage time, the Chiefs would have held the last three teams to under 300 yards, and two of those three were thought to be among the best offenses in the league.

Bolton, for his part, came well-prepared for his Sunday assignment — even if he’d so rarely been asked to use it.

In the offseason, he did some self-scouting, focusing on his blitzes, and he came away with a conclusion.

“I kind of give away when I’m blitzing,” he said. “So I’m trying to mix up my looks, mix up my depth from the line of scrimmage a little bit. I’m trying to get them to count me out.”

The Ravens did count him out. Five times.

The Chiefs provided a reminder of why we shouldn’t count them out. The offense was terrific, and it’s been a minute since that sentence rang true. It turns out, Patrick Mahomes operates more comfortably when the offensive line dominates and the fastest man on the roster plays.

But there’s quietly been a consistent part of this team all along the way: Spagnuolo’s unit.

That’s not exactly a surprise.

But seven years into the job, he’s still full of them.

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