Strange after seeing it again. I just thought he lost sight of the play but the fake was poorly executed by the wide out and the quarterback. I saw it as a WTF moment.
No one else dips their head and puts their eyes in the turf for nearly as long as we try and run that play action call.
Tom Brady is someone who most would consider to take a long head fake. Watch this play and see how "long" his play fake is compared to ours
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to wide receiver Brandon Lloyd for 37-yard TD
Thomas whiffed, Shirreffs dropped too far and took too long to see the field, and you didn't need to get cute with play action there -- a basic play fake is all you need when you're running it down their throats. So, in a nutshell, everything was wrong.
So, it's a high risk play that requires everyone to execute perfectly or there is a high risk of it going awry. So, you would expect that the staff to know the players and know whether or not they have practiced this play perfectly.
Or they were pulling the play out their ass.