Other Strategy, Playbooks, Schemes, Formations, Tactics, Coaching & Philosophy

[aussiedude]

Madden has had access to it for a few years. but havent done much with it. Thats prob because not worth putting it into the card game that makes them all the money.

 

[Sven]

Just listened to a podcast where Doug Ferrari was interviewed about his book “The Genius of Desperation” The book covers schematic innovations since the inception of Pro Football with each chapter covering a particular time period and the innovators of that time.

unfortunately the book isn’t new (was finished in 2018), but I’m sure it would appeal to most NFL junkies out there.

The Genius of Desperation: The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL : Farrar, Doug, Riddick, Louis: Amazon.com.au: Books

The Genius of Desperation: The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL : Farrar, Doug, Riddick, Louis: Amazon.com.au: Books

www.amazon.com.au

 

[Exe Gesis]

Vic Fangio, the most influential DC in modern NFL: A deep dive into his system​

Ted Nguyen
May 24, 2022

In an interview with ESPN prior to the 2019 season, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur were all asked which coach’s defense is the most difficult to read and attack. All three highly successful play callers answered: Vic Fangio, the defensive coordinator of the Bears from 2015-18, and first-year coach with the Broncos in 2019.

In the season before that interview, Fangio earned McVay’s endorsement by introducing the league to the blueprint to stopping McVay’s offense, which looked unstoppable before that matchup. Fangio used a 6-1 tilt front with soft zone coverage to counter the Rams’ outside-zone runs, boots and play-action shot plays. After that Week 14 matchup, the Rams offense rarely looked as explosive as it was before, but it was still effective enough to reach the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. Inspired by Fangio’s tactics, New England used its own version of the tilt front almost exclusively on early downs and held the Rams to three points.

A year after Fangio had an indirect hand in one of the worst losses in his career, McVay hired a little-known outside linebackers coach named Brandon Staley off Fangio’s staff to run his version of Fangio’s system with the Rams. In Staley’s first season as coordinator, the Rams finished No. 1 in defensive DVOA, Football Outsiders’ efficiency metric. Staley was hired as the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers for the following season. To replace him, McVay hired Raheem Morris and had him run Staley’s system almost to a T.

This offseason, Fangio was relieved of his duties as Broncos head coach and is reportedly taking off the coming season. Even in absentia, the unemployed coach is the most influential defensive mind in the league. Next season, I estimate that at least 10 teams will use Fangio’s system or systems that are heavily influenced by it. When Fangio returns, head coaches will line up for the services of the system’s originator.

Part of why Fangio’s system is spreading around the league is that it is in many ways the next philosophical counterpunch to Pete Carroll’s single-high (one deep safety) system that took over the league after the Legion of Boom’s success. After that era, teams designed their offenses to beat three deep, and coaches from that tree quickly discovered that you need an embarrassment of riches to run a system in which one of the core tenets is simplicity. Robert Saleh — arguably the most successful coach from Carroll’s tree — had his best season as a defensive coordinator when he started implementing some of Fangio’s coverage principles to his defense in 2019, the season the 49ers won the NFC championship. The Athletic’s Diante Lee believes even Carroll’s Seahawks will officially move away from single-high defenses and run a Fangio-like two-high (two deep safeties) defense under newly promoted defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt, Fangio’s defensive line coach in Chicago.

What makes Fangio’s defense the best response to modern offenses? Its two-high (two deep safeties) structure limits explosive plays and forces offenses to stay patient and throw short. The front mechanics allow the defense to slow down the run with light boxes and commit more resources to coverage. Pre-snap, the defense is committed to showing the same Cover 4 shell for as long as possible so quarterbacks have to make reads after the snap. Even after the snap, it’s hard to draw a bead on what the coverage is because of how the defensive backs disperse from the top down. To get a grasp of how the system works and what makes it unique, I spoke with 49ers defensive quality control coach Steven Adegoke, Chris Vass, who consults with NFL and college coaches, and Brian Vaughn, the creator of Blitzology.

The Fangio shell​

Let’s start with Fangio’s base coverage: Cover 6. Cover 6 is a combo coverage with Cover 4 to the designated strong side and Cover 2 to the weak side. The strong side is usually the side with more immediate receiving threats.

Edited diagram from Fangio’s 2010 Stanford playbook

Cover 4 at its most basic level is a zone with a defender responsible for a deep fourth of the field, but it is usually played with “match” principles, meaning defenders are playing man with a caveat — like if the receiver in front of them runs underneath. The rules and technique could vary, but in Cover 6, the strong side will play some form of Cover 4.

Cover 2 is a zone coverage with a safety responsible for a deep half of the field, a corner playing underneath of the farthest outside receiver with additional underneath zone defenders inside. There are different variations of Cover 2 that can be called to the weak side of the field.

Setting the coverage in relation to the formation’s passing strength is how it’s first taught, but it can change depending on what the play caller wants to accomplish.

Whereas most defenses have two to three ways of limiting an opponent’s No. 1 receiving threat, Fangio has five or more. One of his favorite ways of doing this with nickel personnel is to call a Cover 2 cloud toward the receiver he wants help on — he can get a corner playing “cloud” technique underneath and a deep safety over the top of the most dangerous threat. The defense plays Cover 4 away from the call.

To do this out of his nickel personnel, the play call would be “Zeus (insert jersey number)” — get it? Cloud on the designated receiver.

Week 15, 5:26 remaining in the second quarter, first-and-10

Against the Bengals, the Broncos wanted help on receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who would go on to be named the 2021 Rookie of the Year. The play call here would be Zeus (No. 1) because Chase wears No. 1.

The defense executed and made life difficult for Chase by clouding him. On the backside, only one receiver went vertical, so he was bracketed by the weakside safety and cornerback.

One of the key features of Fangio’s defense is how everything looks similar before the snap. Both safeties align deep, and usually one or both corners play off the line of scrimmage, so it looks like Cover 4 across the board or Cover 6, making it difficult for quarterbacks to identify the coverage. Figuring out the coverage before the snap informs quarterbacks where they should look first and how to progress from read to read. Making the coverage look the same puts more pressure on quarterbacks to compute more information after the snap.

“The secret is a lot of offensive guys read the weak safety and if that guy is standing in the same place in three deep as he is in Cover 6, as he is in Cover 8, as in quarters, that’s a problem,” Vass explained. “Post-snap, it’s easy to figure out, but pre-snap it could be anything. And they don’t tip their hand very much. I can see it sitting behind a desk, but even that’s hard to spot — what’s it like when ******* Von Miller is coming at you?”

Week 7, 4:21 remaining in the first quarter, third-and-11

From its two-high alignment, the defense can rotate into a variety of zone and man coverages. In the image above, the defense rotated into Cover 1 (man-to-man with one deep safety and a robber) after the snap. The safety to the weak side rotated to the middle of the field, while the safety to the strong side rotated down to play robber. Every other defender was in man coverage.

“They’ll play Cover 3, but it looks and plays a lot like two-high,” Vass said. “If you’re going to do that, you’re not doing it to play the run, you’re doing it to get safeties to play verticals as much as possible.”

Fangio and his disciples still play a fair amount of Cover 3. They just aren’t as forthcoming about it. Also, when they do play it, they play it with a safety rotation coming from depth to take away crossers, which is one of the most popular ways in the NFL to defeat Cover 3. They’ll match routes from the top down with an emphasis on taking away deeper routes. By doing this, their Cover 3 affects offenses similarly to Cover 2, forcing quarterbacks to check the ball down. They’ll also use an adaptation of Cover 3 that some teams call 3-site.

Week 15, 3:44 remaining in the first quarter, second-and-10

On 3-site, the weakside safety rotates down, and he and the weakside linebacker read the No. 2 receiver (second-farthest inside receiver to the sideline) to determine who will play the hook (inside zone) and who will play the flats (outside zone).

If the No. 2 receiver free releases outside, the safety will take him. The theory behind this is that if No. 2 releases to the flat right away, the offense likely isn’t running four verticals so the linebacker would be fine playing the hook zone.

In the image above, the offense was in a two-by-two formation. The weak side was the tight end side (bottom of the screen) and the No. 2 receiver is the tight end, so the safety and linebacker to his side were reading him.

After the snap, the tight end faked like he was lead blocking for a run before a delayed release outside for a route. Because he didn’t free release, the linebacker played the flat and the free safety played the hook zone.

“If there’s no two-fast, this guy (the safety) has the ability to take ‘the special’ (crosser),” Adegoke said. “Usually, the linebacker would have (the crosser), but now you give the opportunity for these guys to exchange responsibilities.”

By reading the tight end, the linebacker and safety end up with even matchups. The safety covered the slot receiver on the crosser, while the linebacker covered the tight end on the delayed flat route.

If the Bengals actually ran the ball on the play, the tight end would run block and the weakside linebacker could play the run more aggressively, knowing the movement of the tight end would trigger the safety to play the hook and help cover crossers. He wouldn’t have to worry about sprinting back to his zone in case of play action.

One of the ways you can tell if the defense is playing 3-site is looking to see if the safety and linebacker are stacked on each other and whether both players pause and read before dropping into their zones. An added benefit from this pause is that if the quarterback is reading the weak safety post-snap to determine the coverage, the safety just staying in one place could cause hesitation. That’s one of the best features of the Fangio system: It’s hard to read pre-snap, and the picture could remain muddy after the snap.

Front mechanics​

Stopping the run on early downs used to be near or at the top of the list of priorities for defensive coordinators, but based on where resources are committed in defensive structures, the priority is now limiting the run because explosive passes hurt defenses more. To get away with playing two safeties deep and lining up light boxes, Fangio and his disciples have their defensive linemen play with a gap-and-half technique.

When playing this technique, defensive linemen aren’t aggressively coming up the field as a single-gap team would and they aren’t just trying to stay square on offensive linemen and control two gaps like old-school, odd-front teams would do. Instead, they attack their primary gap with enough control so that they can “fall back” into their secondary gap. The objective isn’t to make a tackle but force the ball to “roll” outside, which gives defensive backs time to come up in run support from depth. What they don’t want is for vertical seams to open up on the first level and have ball carriers quickly get north and south.

“In split safety (two-high), you can spill the ball because you can bounce to your help,” Adegoke said. “In post safety (one-high) defense, you want to build a wall because you’re not guaranteed help outside because those players are playing their pass responsibilities. So no matter what your front mechanics are, they have to align with the coverage.”

Week 13, 12:12 remaining in the first quarter, second-and-1

Here, the Chiefs had an outside-zone play with a crack block on the safety called toward the boundary. The defense was in its usual two-high structure, and after reacting to a wide receiver motion, it was outnumbered to the run side.

On outside zone, the offense aims to create a vertical cut lane, but the Broncos’ defensive line did a good job of playing its gap-and-half technique and forcing the running back outside. The play-side defensive tackle penetrated and had his eyes inside his primary gap but had his opposite arm locked out so he could fall back if his primary gap was no longer threatened.

The edge defender wasn’t focused on building a wall to contain the ball; he just muddied up the read for the running back and forced him to bounce the ball outside. The receiver “cracked” the safety, so the corner outside of him “crack replaced” and tackled the running back after a short gain.

This type of technique is typically used with odd fronts, but Fangio will use it in his even fronts to steal gaps and create overlap. The gap responsibilities aren’t always clear-cut, but the second- and third-level defenders can sort out things in real time if the defensive line slows down the ball carrier.

In nickel (five defensive backs) personnel, Fangio and his disciples can play their “Penny front,” with three interior defensive linemen and two outside linebackers on the line of scrimmage and one inside linebacker on the second level.

In this front, the defense has every hole clogged, but with only one linebacker on the second level the defense this susceptible if the ball carrier can get past the first level.

Fangio didn’t use this front as much as other coaches in his tree. Staley and Packers defensive coordinator Joe Berry, who coached under Staley and brought the system to Green Bay, call it frequently in their sub-personnel, probably because they have a lot more talent up front than Fangio did in Denver. When you have guys like Aaron Donald and Kenny Clark inside, it’s easier to trust that they won’t allow runners to quickly get north and south.

This type of system requires run-stuffing interior linemen. As it permeates the league, the value of run-stuffing defensive tackles will increase. If the defense can slow down the run without committing more resources in the box, it can keep lighter bodies on the field and play them farther from the line of scrimmage. In Staley’s first season with the Chargers, his defense finished 26th in defensive DVOA. The Chargers didn’t have interior defensive line depth, and the defense was repeatedly gashed on the ground. Though stopping the pass is the priority, the defense has to goad offenses to pass by limiting the run.

Blurring the lines between one-high and two-high​

Against heavy personnel, Fangio will get an extra defender in the box, but he doesn’t like to tip his hand even in those instances.

“They are a late roll team even when they play Cover 1,” Vaughn said. “When they play these principles, it’s going to look like quarters and halves for a long time, and then they are going to roll late because they don’t want you to treat them like seven-man or eight-man spacing depending on what front they are in.”

Seven-man or eight-man spacing refers to how many defenders are in the box. Offenses have to adjust their blocking scheme to account for light or heavy boxes. Some teams will even have built-in checks to audible runs into play-action shot plays against heavy boxes.

A call that Fangio has used since his time at Stanford to defend the run against heavy personnel and still double the receiver of his choice is “Roll Luggage (insert jersey number).”

Week 3, 5:22 remaining in the second quarter, first-and-10

Similar to “Zeus”, the defense will set the Cover 2 side to the called jersey number. Here, the defense wanted to cloud receiver Elijah Moore (No. 8), so the call was likely “Roll Luggage (No. 8)”.

To the weak side, the defense will usually play Cover 4 with the safety coming up aggressively toward the run. Technically, the Cover 4 safety usually won’t count in the box count for the offense because he’ll end up rotating right around 10 yards or less from the line of scrimmage, but he’ll trigger quickly if he sees his key run blocking.

On this play, because the offense had its receivers lined up with tight splits, the defense adjusted the Cover 4 side to inverted Cover 2, meaning the corner played a deep half while the safety rolled into the box and played the vertical hook zone.

On the other side, the corner bumped and funneled Moore inside toward the deep safety.

The offensive play call was a hard play-action shot play with a deep post and crosser, one of the staple concepts for coaches from the Shanahan-McVay coaching tree. The deep post was capped off with the cloud coverage, and three underneath defenders covered the crosser.

Even for experienced coaches watching film from the comfort of their couches, deciphering Fangio’s coverages can be difficult. The pre-snap disguises with all the variations of coverages, techniques and reads can create a chaotic presentation.

Week 18, 6:33 remaining in the third quarter, second-and-10

Here, the defense presented its usual Cover 4 shell.

After the snap, the corner to the top of the screen stayed deep but didn’t move his feet. The safety to that side dropped deeper than the deepest, giving the defense the appearance of a three-deep zone as the quarterback got to the top of his drop.

The nickel, who would be the seam/flat defender in a three-deep zone, stayed on top of the slot receiver, making the running back look like he would be open underneath.

To the top of the screen, the defense was actually in Cover 2 with the corner playing the flat, the nickel playing the hook and the free safety playing over the top. The coverage was Cover 4 to the bottom of the screen. The corner and free safety bracketed the weakside receiver.

Patrick Mahomes might have thought there was no flat defender. He checked the ball down, but because the corner was playing his Cover 2 cloud technique, he was right there to tackle the running back for only a short gain.

Fangio’s system is being popularized at a time when we are seeing an influx of blue-chip quarterbacks in the league. The goal playing against Mahomes, Josh Allen and other top quarterbacks has shifted from trying to shut them down to slowing them down and testing their patience. Fangio’s system is built to do just that, and it has the ability to create confusion that can lead to drive-killing negative plays. Where the system is susceptible is against teams that run the ball from spread formations or quarterbacks who can be patient and execute consistently in the quick game. In some ways, Seattle’s defense emboldened offenses to throw the ball deeper. Will Fangio’s defense have the opposite effect?

(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic; photos: Robin Alam / Icon SMI / Corbis / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; Matthew Stockman and Dustin Bradford / Getty Images)

 

[Exe Gesis]

A deep dive into his system: Vic Fangio, the most influential DC in modern NFL

What makes Vic Fangio's defense the best response to modern offenses? Its two-high structure limits explosive plays and forces short throws.

theathletic.com

 

[Exe Gesis]

From Wes Welker to supersized: Inside the NFL’s slot receiver evolution

The rise of the “power slot” — and the way defenses are poised to respond — expresses the schematic arc that continues to define the NFL.

theathletic.com

 

[drd23]

First game of the season, in 4OT

 

[drd23]

 

[rumply]

Geometry yo.

I guess Dougy is young enough to be the next Andy Reid, just.

 

[Exe Gesis]

All geometry.....there are offensive strategies and theories all based on dividing the field up into smaller sections and also counting defenders in various sections...as a way of pre-snap reads as well as formulating plays per se. Not just sinple hi-lo, or east-west, but even smaller sections. Route concepts and reads.

 

[rumply]

 

[Sven]

Didn't know where to post this one, but.....

 

[Exe Gesis]

Thanks to LittleG ...

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

 

[Exe Gesis]

Yeah nah on that guy's video.

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

Excellent article on Miami’s short motion using Hill and how it quickly was copied throughout the league. Would’ve been difficult getting timing right at snap and still keeping it secret. Some good info on how they prep game film as well and what coaches first study on a Monday. How teams monitor everything from social media to open practices to copy other teams


https://theathletic.com/5367155/2024/03/27/nfl-short-motion-play-adoption/?source=nyt_sports

It didn’t take longer than a week or two for the idea to proliferate across the league.

Early in the second quarter of their Week 1 game against the Los Angeles Chargers, Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel called a short out motion to set up a 28-yard catch for receiver Tyreek Hill.

The motion element of the play was new to many, a truncated version of a longer-developing pre-snap jet motion that features a player running behind and across the formation before he bursts upfield at the snap. This short motion sent Hill outward — not inside or across — after a signal from the quarterback. He then turned to run vertically at the snap of the ball instead of having to first get across the formation, sprinting about 15 yards downfield before breaking inward for the catch in the middle of the field.

The motion spread rapidly across the NFL, at first and especially among the coaching family to which McDaniel belongs. The Rams, under head coach Sean McVay, started running these motions by Week 2 in a game against the San Francisco 49ers, coached by Kyle Shanahan, and vice versa. Zac Taylor’s Cincinnati Bengals ran it by Week 3. By midseason, the Green Bay Packers, coached by Matt LaFleur, used the concept against the Rams.


Current Falcons head coach Raheem Morris, a former colleague of all of them, joked in November that McDaniel, Shanahan and McVay would have to fight over credit for the concept’s inception as quickly as it blazed into a leaguewide trend.

At the end of the 2023 season, some version of the short out motion was in the playbooks of most, if not all, teams that frequently utilized pre-snap motion. “We call it ‘cheat’ because it’s cheating,” Shanahan said in September. “It’s cool to get ’em running sideways, and still hit it vertically.”

In football, ideas form in one building, are borrowed by another and continue to evolve based on a team’s personnel and staff. Some concepts are solved by scheme; others are “unsolvable” because of the abilities of the players who run them. With the help of technology and a generation of coaches and players driven toward innovation, that cycle happens faster than ever.

Hill’s speed brought Miami’s version of “cheat” to life. He could run any type of route out of it, including the in-breakers that capitalized on recently vacated space in the middle of the field.

Nobody else had Hill, but everybody else wanted to see if they could apply the motion, and variations of it, to players with different skill sets. Even players without elite speed could get open off the line of scrimmage when running this short out motion because it can open up space behind another offensive player — a “rub” — nearly simultaneously with the snap.

Meanwhile, defensive coaches agonized over ways to stop it.

---

When reporters asked McDaniel where he came up with the motion in September, he told them he was “just bored.” The real answer is more layered.

The Dolphins’ passing attack is predicated on timing, and the elite speed possessed by both Hill and fellow receiver Jaylen Waddle means even deeper route concepts have quick-throw potential. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s average time to throw last season was league-fastest at 2.36 seconds, according to Next Gen Stats, yet Miami’s offense ranked second in pass yards per attempt (8.3).

Defenses worked to contain the Dolphins’ explosive passing attack in different ways. Some tried jamming Hill off the line to disrupt or delay his timing or using other techniques to try to move receivers off their route patterns and landmarks. Some teams put a wide, hard-to-navigate shell over the defensive backfield and hoped they could harass Tagovailoa with only four pass rushers or force him to take shorter completions under that shell.

Miami, like many other teams across the NFL, already deployed jet motions. Using different cadences, calls and signals, Tagovailoa could time the snap so the player in motion could cut upfield and get space off the line of scrimmage as well as a head start into running full speed. But those motions ultimately require players to cover a significant amount of horizontal yardage before their routes even begin.

Every NFL offensive playbook contains at least one form of pre- and at-snap motion, the use of which has especially increased over the last seven years. Seventeen of the NFL’s 32 teams utilized motion on at least 50 percent of offensive snaps in 2023, ESPN analytics found, with some of the league’s top offenses — the Dolphins, Rams, 49ers, Chiefs, Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions — using it most frequently.

Source: ESPN Stats & Info

Simpler motions reveal whether a defense is in man or zone coverage, but some modern defenses disguise their “man/zone indicators,” thus nullifying the intent of an information-gathering motion. More advanced motions create multiple advantages at once, providing information about the defense while also manufacturing leverage and space.

For example, this Kansas City Chiefs motion, combined with a run/pass option (RPO), helps show a defense’s coverage based on defender movement. It may also help the quarterback alert to pressure.

Most importantly, the motion changes the formation to determine whether the offense will get a numbers advantage against either downfield defenders (pass), or box defenders (run). Quarterback Patrick Mahomes sees he has one less defender to tie up his receivers if he decides to pass because that defender shows he will play the run during the pre-snap motion.

(Drew Jordan / The Athletic)

The Rams utilize motion in their pass and run game with a variety of receivers and tight ends (so do the 49ers, Packers and others). These motions do everything from switching the front and back sides of formations, creating space and leverage for speed players, disguising run concepts and possibly even disguising a quarterback’s “can” — an alert to audible to the second or third of multiple plays sent through the headset pre-snap.

And sometimes these motions do all this at once.

In the Rams’ passing game, motion can help disguise roles on a given play. Receivers can run motions that make defenders believe they will behave like a fullback or tight end based on alignment, then run a typical receiver’s route after the snap.

“What Mike McDaniel has been doing in Miami, everybody is copying it,” LaFleur said in early November. “What the Rams are doing with guys like Puka (Nacua), they’re essentially getting him in a position and then he becomes a fullback, yet he might run a deep over on you …

“It definitely has changed the game quite substantially, in my opinion.”

Most modern offenses feature player/coach partnerships with a mutually understood intent behind their motions. It starts with an idea, and in some NFL buildings, those can come from anywhere. In the case of “cheat,” McDaniel’s idea didn’t look like it came from the NFL at all.

When Hall of Fame Canadian Football League executive Danny McManus and pro scout Sammy Gahagan attended a Dolphins training camp practice together in Miami Gardens, Fla., last summer, they felt a philosophical kinship with all of the pre- and at-snap movement they observed.

“I kind of thought, ‘That looks eerily familiar,” Gahagan said. “I had one of the scouts from Miami talk to me about it, and he goes, ‘Coach McDaniel has been kind of brushing up on his CFL work.’ I was like, ‘Oh, that’s why this is all starting to look familiar.’ Because for us, all we do is watch people in motion!”

To eyes accustomed to watching CFL offenses, everything the NFL does with motion looks a bit static. In the CFL, as many as five of 12 offensive players can move outward, inward and toward the line of scrimmage before the snap. NFL motion rules prohibit vertical movement until the ball is snapped, as well as multiple simultaneous motions.

“Cheat” almost looked like it was bending those rules, or at the very least drawing inspiration from the Northern game.

(Drew Jordan / The Athletic)

In this clip, the short, fast motion sends Hill outside and behind another receiver, creating the “rub” for his defender milliseconds before the ball is snapped.

The combination of the rub and Hill’s running start makes it almost impossible for a defender to regain proper leverage or make meaningful contact. According to Amazon/Next Gen Stats, which analyzed this clip using its in-game player tracking technology, Hill reached 7.71 miles per hour as the ball was snapped and 16.04 mph as he crossed the line of scrimmage. Hill’s maximum speed on the play was 18.98 mph — so he reached near top speed right off of the line.

“If we’re able to use our speed vertically without allowing the (defensive back) to get hands on us, that helps us a lot,” Hill said in December. “Remember, offense is about timing and placement of the ball. If a (defensive back) is allowed to get his hand on us, dictate us or push us off our landmark … the play is dead at that point.”

It is difficult for defenders to pass off help to one another pre-snap against “cheat” like they sometimes can with a longer motion. Help has to happen post-snap and at speed, and there are other eligible receivers to defend, making it more disruptive to an NFL defense than typical motion plays.

“It displaces the drops of everybody else,” McManus said. “They are creating more space in a 53-yard field just like we try to eat up a lot of space in our 65-yard field.”

Over seemingly endless reps last summer, Tagovailoa and the offense timed the concept so that the motion player could legally cut upfield right at the snap. As a shorter motion, “cheat” requires a different pre-snap sequence and post-snap dropback, both of which can change further depending on the route pairing. Eventually, the Dolphins ran the concept in a joint practice with the Falcons in mid-August, the closest they could get to running it in a game-like scenario while still keeping the motion a relative secret. And secrecy was important.

Many organizations task pro scouting department staff with combing through social media, videos of open practices posted by fans, beat writer reports, press conference videos posted on team websites and even Reddit threads for intel that could help gain an advantage. Then, when the season begins, all NFL teams receive copies of each others’ game film.

During a typical game week, that footage is uploaded into the team’s video archiving and sorting system late Sunday night. The software then filters plays into different buckets — run plays, pass plays, down and distance, red zone, etc. Game planning generally must be completed by Tuesday, before the first Wednesday morning installation meeting with players, so all of the film from the upcoming opponent, plus the selected buckets of plays from around the league, must be absorbed by coaches by then.

There’s also an explosive reel, which features run plays that gained 10- or 12-plus yards and pass plays that gained 20-plus yards. This is the film many coaches like to watch first, and it’s where the Dolphins’ 28-yard play — featuring “cheat” — landed late Sunday night after Week 1.

By that Monday morning, most head coaches — and many assistants — had seen the motion. By Tuesday, it was in the Week 2 game plan for the Rams, 49ers and others. By late September, NFL analysts across the sport were buzzing about it. As the 2023 season continued, coaches didn’t just see new variants of “cheat” but also different strategies to defend it and other motions.

Backup quarterback Mike White runs the Dolphins’ scout team. As part of a weekly assignment, he receives play cards from defensive coaches illustrating the plays they believe the opposing offense will use against Miami in the upcoming week to then run against the first-team defense in practice. By November, White frequently saw plays he recognized as versions of Miami’s own coming up on his cards.

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.

A defensive assistant coach who game-planned against Miami last season came up with different ways to push the motion player to the perimeter and keep him there, in an attempt to cut off any in-breaking routes. The problem? “Cheat” was relatively new, and some defensive countermoves could deviate from defensive coaches’ coverage rules against other motions. A team has only two or three days of practice to install any type of counter. When planning against teams that could run multiple routes off “cheat,” quick-patch solves only helped so much.

Defensive coaches and players said they started to see subtle attempts to disrupt the timing of skill players at a different part of the route — knowing they couldn’t right off the line of scrimmage.

“You’ve got to get hands on them as quick as you can,” McManus said. “Whether someone, now, starts running with that guy as he’s in motion, doing that exit motion, and just buries him into the sideline. … You’ve got to try to blow it up some way. I can see them start getting more physical with it, but you are (still) taking the chance that somebody will go right past you.”


In 14 games last season with the Dolphins, Jaylen Waddle caught 72 passes for 1,014 yards and four TDs. He averaged 14.1 yards per reception and totaled 421 yards after the catch. (Sam Navarro / USA Today)
It was no coincidence that the best defenses in the league in 2023 featured versatile players with disciplined eyes against motion, hard-to-discern pressure — or simulated pressure — and post-snap defensive back rotations aimed at making quarterbacks hesitate in their decision-making even if they had an initial advantage gained with pre and at-snap motion.

“I’m sure that will be everybody’s offseason project. We’ll have to adjust somehow,” said White, smiling. “Every time someone has success, that’s everyone else’s offseason project. ‘I’m gonna figure out how to stop that.'”

Each spring, coaches watch a vast amount of film cut-ups from all over the league as they complete their own teams’ evaluations and prepare for free agency. Eventually, everybody watches all of the explosive plays. That’s how many coaches get their ideas, see how defenses are playing certain concepts, and discover gadget plays.

LaFleur, for example, had two large computer screens and a wall-mounted flat screen with clips of offensive plays from the Dolphins, 49ers and Chiefs pulled up in his office last spring, while speaking with The Athletic for “The Playcallers” series.

“I’m not too ashamed to say that I steal from anybody if I think it’s a good idea, I don’t care,” said LaFleur, grinning. “I’m trying to get inspiration from watching others and how they use maybe a specific player or, you know, to try to come up with plays or ideas that are going to help our players be their best.”

As ideas spread around the league faster than ever, coaches know they have to look where others may not be looking. Through their video sorting technology and staff, some coaches even watch “failed” plays — snaps where a formation, concept and motion are clear, but an error happens or the play is stopped after minimal gain or even a loss.

“Some of the best things you might see are the things that don’t end up working out but you can see the intent behind it,” McVay said. “If you sort it by just the positive gains, that’s the only stuff that you end up seeing. …

“It’s a delicate balance, though, because you can go down a rabbit hole where you’re chasing a lot of things”

Other coaches keep years-long logs of what worked for them in a singular moment, stashing an idea until the perfect time to re-use it arises.

An inside/outside speed motion on the Super Bowl-winning touchdown catch by Kansas City Chiefs receiver Mecole Hardman was nicknamed “Tom and Jerry.” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid had run the motion in the previous year’s Super Bowl by another name: “Corn dog.”

Thirty-one other head coaches watched him do it. Suddenly an idea was new again. Again.