How the Chiefs lucked into this huge play vs. the Ravens. (No, not the last one)

A referee stuck the football directly on the 50-yard line. The sideline marker showed fourth down. The Ravens kept their offense on the field.

And for all of the faux controversy over a different defensive timeout in the NFL season opener, which the Chiefs won Thursday, this was the instance in which they actually needed the timeout.

The defensive backfield resembled chaos, and for once, that wasn’t by design. They were scrambling, two cornerbacks and a safety in literal motion and still searching for their assignments when Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson received the snap.

The Chiefs, though, won this snap anyway, one of the most important of the game that just might have gotten lost in the shuffle given its finish. (It shouldn’t.)

How did they win it? The guy in the center of that chaos — who would later raise his hand as at least partly responsible for it — made the play.

Trent McDuffie.

The Chiefs beat the Ravens 27-20 on the shoe size of Baltimore tight end Isaiah Likely, but this play, a fourth-down stop, actually had the identical statistical effect on the win probability as that last snap, per the the analytical website RBSDM.

Because of the aforementioned pre-snap scrambling, the Chiefs didn’t have the opportunity to huddle and call a defensive play, so they went with their default defense. That offered McDuffie the choice of his assignment, and he immediately searched for Zay Flowers. He figured the Ravens had two options: They’d run Lamar or throw it to Zay.

A problem, though.

McDuffie couldn’t find Flowers. He swore he saw him in the huddle. Looked and looked for him, though, and just couldn’t find him.

There was a reason for that: Flowers, who stands only 5-9, squatted even shorter to hide behind the right side of the Ravens’ offensive line. It worked.

And yet, McDuffie did find him.

After the snap.

Too late? Not quite.

The Ravens hit Flowers on a backfield route to the right side, and you already know who was there waiting.

The Chiefs were in zone defense — they had little other choice amid the unexpected confusion — so McDuffie abandoned his wide receiver to meet Flowers at the line of scrimmage and made a flawless open-field tackle.

To recap: confused pre-snap.

Made the play.

Then confused once more in the postgame locker room.

That’s where, after telling me his assignment, I actually informed McDuffie why he couldn’t find Flowers after the Ravens broke the huddle.

“He was hiding behind the line,” I said.

“That’s where he went,” McDuffie replied. “I was trying to follow Zay, and I just had no idea where he was. I just ran to the left side. I lost him.

“It’s funny you brought that up. Now I want to see that play.”

A day later, he did.

McDuffie took part in a charity event Saturday outside GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, handing out pizza to military members and their families as part of the Little Caesars Love Kitchen program.

“I assume you’ve seen that play by now,” I said.

“I did,” he said. “I finally know what you’re talking about, too.”

The irony is that McDuffie’s study habits play such a critical role in his success. He spends literal hours every night of a game week looking at an opponent’s tendencies. It’s why I approached him in the locker room. Wondered if there might be an anecdote.

There was.

Not the one I’d anticipated — and I’ll give him credit for acknowledging this:

“They caught us off-guard,” McDuffie said. “I feel like it was more right-place, right-time sort of thing versus knowing exactly what they did. But glad I was there.”

McDuffie allowed only two catches for 22 yards, per PFF, and one of those was Flowers’ 19-yard grab on the opening drive. Which means that McDuffie allowed only three yards over the final 56 minutes of the game.

There are a couple of particularly notable items tucked into those things — both the fourth-down snap and the statistical line — in the Chiefs’ first game since the departure of L’Jarius Sneed to Tennessee.

McDuffie had the option to follow Flowers for most of the game rather than line up on the same half of the field each snap — which is more of a like-for-like replacement for Sneed’s role than defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo had suggested the Chiefs would pursue. I’ll note, however, that McDuffie did not do that on every snap.

Related: It was McDuffie’s first full game on the outside, and he locked it down.

Three yards over a 57-minute span.

There was an element of luck involved in a fourth-down stop.

It’s all McDuffie on the rest.