The NFL’s offensive masterminds continue to innovate and find new advantages, and the cyclical nature of scheme means defensive coaches will find a counter. It’s a chess match that continues every offseason.
For example, the popularity of outside schemes was met with more odd fronts with defensive linemen playing more patiently to cause indecision for runners. So last year, we began to see more old-school gap scheme runs from offenses. Defensive coaches are very good at what they do, so the new, shiny trends on offense typically lose their potency fast. What are those pesky defensive coaches thinking about heading into the 2024 season? I asked defensive coaches around the league what offensive trends, plays or concepts they’ve spent time coming up with answers for.
The Dolphins’ cheat motion
The most common answer I got was the “cheat” motion popularized by the Dolphins and Tyreek Hill. Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel unveiled it in Week 1, and it seems like every team has added it to their playbook. The motion is simple. A receiver with a tight split sprints outside to get a running start and the quarterback quickly snaps the ball as the receiver is still running, before the defense can properly react.
(Drew Jordan / The Athletic)
Cheat motion helps get receivers to full speed before the snap similar to how Canadian Football Players do, except NFL players have to do it moving horizontally. Cheat motion can be used to create rubs that are hard for the defense to adjust to because of how quickly the ball gets snapped.
Offensive coordinators got creative with their usage of cheat motion last season. They used it to get receivers both inside and outside, to get receivers open deep or open up space underneath, and combined it with run/pass options (RPOs). It’s been a pain to defend.
Week 3, 11:56 remaining in the second quarter, first-and-10
Rams coach Sean McVay was one of the best at using motion to create advantages in the passing game last year. Here, he called an inside variation of cheat motion to free up Tutu Atwell. Atwell initially was lined up outside against Bengals corner Chidobe Awuzie.
As Atwell motioned inside, nickel Mike Hilton had to switch onto him to avoid a possible rub.
However, because of the quick switch, Hilton played a step or two too far outside of Atwell, giving him too much space to work with inside. Hilton was supposed to have inside help, but the inside defenders were frozen by play action.
Hilton couldn’t recover and Atwell was open for an explosive pass play.
“A pro personnel executive for a team who was not authorized to speak publicly said that even his coaches, who did not face the Dolphins in 2023, put ‘cheat’ on their scout-team cards because they knew it would eventually come up from an opponent who was on their schedule,” The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue wrote in her report on the motion.
Defenses will definitely be more prepared for the motion this season. They’ll have quick checks and adjustments they can get to that will help them deal with it better, using all offseason to work with them.
One coach I talked to wasn’t as worried about the motion. He feels it is already overexposed and is more about the player who gets put in motion. Not every receiver can run a diverse route tree off of the motion.
“You have to have guys running routes running out of this thing. How many guys can actually run routes that involve a downfield break off of a full-speed motion? And how often are those guys targeted? It’s not quite as high as you people would think,” the defensive coach said. “There’s probably 10 guys in the league that can really run that route fast enough, clean enough, time it with another receiver off of the motion.”
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Pace of motion
Cheat motion isn’t the only way teams are getting creative with motion. The pace of the motion and at which point they snap the ball also can be problematic.
If teams aren’t varying the pace of their motions and snap points, the plays they run off of motion can become predictable. The best motion teams are conscious of all of this and weaponize it to make life hard on defenses.
“When a guy jogs across the formation slow and then boom, the ball gets snapped and he takes off, that’s a son of a bitch to defend and there’s no way to chart those other than just watching all the plays,” an NFL defensive coach said. “Also, if you have a guy that sprints across the formation that forces a defensive check then he gets set and then the ball gets snapped. That’s like that’s a big-time problem because it’s just creating a healthy dose of pre-snap conflict where defenders in the second level are unsure.”
NFC divisional round, 8:31 remaining in the third quarter, second-and-5
Here, the Rams started with three eligible receivers to Matthew Stafford’s right. This side was the passing strength of the formation, so the Lions lined up their nickel Brian Branch there.
Cooper Kupp then sprinted to the other side and got set. Because of the pace of the motion, the defense bumped linebacker Alex Anzalone outside instead of having Branch follow Kupp across the formation. As Kupp got set, they had some time to possibly adjust but chose not to because the Rams could have snapped the ball at any time.
Instead of snapping the ball, the Rams had receiver Puka Nacua also motion across the formation. Still, the Lions kept Branch to the right even though the passing strength of the formation had completely flipped.
After the snap, Anzalone had to run with Nacua on a wheel route. Kupp also ran a route across the formation, holding the defenders on that side. No one was left in the flats to defend the running back screen, which was perfectly set up.
In the last five-plus seasons, coaches from the Kyle Shanahan/Sean McVay tree have effectively used motion to create advantages in the running game and to dress up their play-action concepts. Now they are getting extremely creative with using motion to create advantages in the passing game. Forward-thinking defensive coaches should have spent the offseason adding counters and tools to their playbooks for their secondary to use on the field against these different types of motions.
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Four-strong concepts
Overloading one side of the formation before the snap is difficult for a defense to handle. Especially with so many defenses playing more match coverages in which defenders look at receivers and try to match with them based on their route stems. Four-strong means the offense is either lining up four eligible receivers to one side or getting four receivers with their routes after the snap.
One concept mentioned a lot by the defensive coaches I talked to was popularized by Shanahan and the 49ers. They would flood one side of the field with four routes but have fullback Kyle Juszczyk lead block for the running back on a swing route.
Several teams have copied this concept, but the Packers’ Matt LaFleur has his own version that is particularly hard to stop. The 49ers run their four-strong concept out of 21 personnel (two backs, one tight end, two receivers) and they’ll run it out of 1-back. This is a little easier for the defense because all the eligible receivers are compressed initially.
LaFleur runs his variation out of faster personnel groupings. Also, he’ll combine the swing with an escort with a downfield concept.
NFC divisional round, 1:19 left in the first quarter, second-and-11
Here, the Packers are running their four-strong concept with an escort out of 12 personnel (one back, two tight ends, two receivers). Tight end Tucker Kraft is the escort (lead blocker) for the running back swing out of the backfield. Instead of shorter routes like the 49ers’ version, the Packers had a dagger concept called.
The 49ers defenders dropped deep to defend the downfield pass combination, leaving the swing open underneath.
Kraft took out the flat defender, giving the running back space to run down the sideline.
Counter
As defenses have moved to play more light boxes and odd fronts, offenses have swung back to using more gap scheme plays. The most popular gap scheme play is counter, in which the front side of the offensive line down blocks while two pullers come from the back side — usually a guard and either a tackle, tight end or fullback.
The popular Vic Fangio/Brandon Staley system deploys two deep safeties with a focus on stopping explosive pass plays while conceding the run, and the extra defender who has to come up to play the extra blockers created by counter comes from the secondary. That’s asking a lot of the safety.
Week 14, 14:13 remaining in the second quarter, second-and-11
On this play, the Giants ran counter as a run/pass option (RPO). They were in a spread formation and had a glance concept to the counter side (left). Quarterback Tommy DeVito was reading the safety.
The safety stepped down to defend the counter, leaving the glance wide-open behind him.
One defensive coach said he was thinking about ways to defend QB counter options, which he believes he sees more of in his division than traditional zone read. Even with an extra defender in the box, a QB counter is very difficult to stop if the quarterback is a legitimate running threat.
Week 14, 13:00 remaining in the second quarter, first-and-10
Here, the Giants ran QB counter with running back Saquon Barkley taking the snap. Barkley had two options: hand off to receiver Wan’Dale Robinson running left with a lead block or keep the ball and follow the counter blocking with two pulling offensive linemen to the right.
Barkley read the defensive end to the right. If he stayed outside, he would have kept the ball, but because he stepped inside, Barkley made the right read and handed the ball off.
If the end stayed outside, the Giants would have a numbers advantage and excellent blocking to the right for Barkley.
Counter is an old-school concept, but as coaches prioritize defending the pass, they’ll have to think of ways to limit physical runs like the counter with lighter boxes.
(Top photo of Tyreek Hill in motion: Miami Dolphins via Associated Press)
