Trick plays? A treat -- if they work

The Oakland Raiders ran a trick play last Sunday and got the element-of-surprise part right.

They surprised the heck out of their own players.

“We do that in practice all the time, but I never knew that it was a real thing that we were going to attempt,” cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha said when asked about a botched pitch to 250-pound kicker Sebastian Janikowski on a fake field goal against Kansas City. A Chiefs defender scooped up the loose ball and returned it 67 yards for a touchdown.

Asomugha was watching from the sideline, and from his angle it simply looked as if the kick attempt was blocked.

“When they told me that’s what happened -- that it wasn’t blocked -- I was a little surprised,” he said after the 20-13 defeat.

The way things have gone this season, though, no one should be surprised when yet another team tries yet another trick play. People could ask the same thing all over the league: Is this a football stadium or the Magic Castle?

Ever since the Miami Dolphins used the so-called Wildcat offense to outsmart the New England Patriots, with Ronnie Brown running for three touchdowns and throwing for another in a Week 3 shocker, virtually every team has rolled out its version of the single-wing formation.

“It seems almost obligatory that everybody has to do it one time,” said former Baltimore Coach Brian Billick, now a Fox analyst. “It’s almost comical that as I go around the league everybody’s taking credit for it. ‘We ran this five years ago.’ And somebody else: ‘No, we ran this 10 years ago.’ It’s old single-wing football. It’s been around since football’s been around.”

So common is the Wildcat, it’s become more of a wrinkle than a trick play. And the reliable defenses are catching on. “The good teams know how to react to it very quickly and just shut it down,” Billick said. “I don’t know that it catches anybody off guard now.”

Catching opponents off guard is the objective, of course. And face it: Everybody likes a trick play that works. Billick said coaches who practice gimmicks during the week but never use them in a game run the risk of annoying their own players.

“If you don’t call them, then the players become irritated, like, ‘We always practice this stuff but we never use it. Either use it or quit screwing around with it,’ ” he said.

As for the fans, they love seeing trick plays, right?

“Yes,” Billick said. “They love them right up to the point where they don’t work. When the plays don’t work, then the fans think you’re an idiot for trying.”

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sam.farmer@latimes.com