PlayAction column: Bills' defense braces for Dolphins' fast motion
Miami has taken motion to a new level under coach Mike McDaniel by having its speedsters (receiver Tyreek Hill and running back De’Von Achane, especially) go flying horizontally as the ball is snapped.
The Miami Dolphins not only have the fastest offense in the NFL, they utilize it in trendsetting ways that enhance their speed advantage.
One big way is motion – specifically motion that happens as the ball is being snapped.
Terrel Bernard (43) and Taylor Rapp (20) prepare to tackle Tyreek Hill in a game at Miami in January. Bernard and Rapp will need on-point communication in defending Hill & Co. on Thursday night.
Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
Miami ran motion at the at snap 68% of its plays last season, by far the most in the league, according to ESPN. The Los Angeles Rams were second at 44%. Only two other teams, San Francisco and Green Bay, were over 30%.
Motion is up across the NFL. Back in 2019, teams motioned at the snap only an average of 11%. Think of the jet-motion plays the Bills started to use with Isaiah McKenzie under Brian Daboll’s direction. Last year the average was up to 23%, according to ESPN.
Teams can gain a lot of advantages using motion. It helps reveal the defensive scheme. If no defenders move with the motioning receiver, they’re very likely zone coverage. Motion forces the defense to communicate more, which could create a coverage bust. It can create a numbers mismatch in the run game. It can create a mismatch in the pass game (if a team with one top cornerback doesn’t have that guy follow the star receiver). It can help get a receiver off of press coverage.
“It’s common,” Bills linebacker Terrel Bernard said. “We showed a statistic at the beginning of camp that I think 70% to 75% of plays have some sort of motion or jet motion. We kind of expect it now. We definitely game-plan week to week how we’re going to handle it. There’s different tools that we use. It’s definitely a league-wide thing.”
Miami has taken it to a new level under coach Mike McDaniel by having its speedsters (receiver Tyreek Hill and running back De’Von Achane, especially) go flying horizontally as the ball is snapped. It gives them a running start on screen passes toward the sideline, or it gives them a running start as they cut upfield.
San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan last season dubbed it “cheat motion” (even though it’s legal, as long as the player isn’t moving toward the line of scrimmage).
“Tyreek is such a unique dude,” Shanahan said. “He’s the one dude with those motions who is fast enough to run any route known to man off of them. Not many people are like that. So they try a lot of stuff with that. Mike’s as good as anyone at trying stuff and being creative.”
This will be a big challenge for the Bills’ defense Thursday, especially because they won’t have slot cornerback Taron Johnson on the field, and they will have two new safeties communicating on the back end. Cam Lewis takes over for Johnson. Ja’Marcus Ingram steps in as a dime cornerback.
“Miami does a great job,” Bills defensive coordinator Bobby Babich said. “We played them a lot. So I think that, yes, having prepared for them helps us. But at the same time, there’s new faces on our defense that we have to make sure are aware of the things that we already know. We just got to make sure we acclimate everybody to that. Obviously it’s a challenge because it’s a short week. But that’s no excuse. We’ll make sure the guys are ready to go.”
If the offense has three receivers to one side of the formation, the defense considers the man on the far outside No. 1, the middle receiver No. 2, the inside receiver No. 3. In man-to-man or some matchup-zone coverages, motion changes who guards Nos. 1, 2 and 3. In general, motion causes more communication challenges against man or match coverages.
Early in the Bills’ win at Miami last January, Christian Benford made an interception covering Hill, who had come in fast motion to his side at the snap and streaked up the sideline. Benford is an assignment-sound cornerback. But that doesn’t mean his job is easy.
Miami ran motion at the snap 42 times (65%) in Sunday’s win over Jacksonville, according to Buffalo News charting. The Bills ran it 14 times (24%), which was up from Buffalo’s rate last season (13%).
Motion challenges
If motion at the snap is so wonderful, why doesn’t every team do it on every play? Not every team has Miami’s speed, which makes it more effective.But motion also creates challenges for the offensive line’s run-blocking assignments. If the defensive line or linebackers are reacting to the motion and shifting at the snap, that changes who’s blocking who, and also which linebacker the lineman is blocking as he gets off a double-team and moves to the second level.
“It is a challenge,” said Bills guard David Edwards. “Especially, it depends if they’re in a 2-high defense or a single-high defense. So their fits are different. In 2-high, maybe they don’t adjust as much. In single high (with a safety closer to the tackle-to-tackle box), they’re going to do a bunch when there’s motion. So you need to have a really good understanding of which way the motion’s going then an expectation based on the coverage of how the second-level players are going to move.”
Let’s say Edwards and center Connor McGovern are on a combination block and one of them is moving up to block a safety.
“If they’re bringing a motion, it might pull him out (of the box),” Edwards said. “Or we’re bringing a guy this way and the combination is going to be on a guy who’s outside the box coming back into the box. So you’ve got to know it’s this defense, here’s how we scouted them and here’s what we’re expecting.”
It requires the linemen to read and react in unison on the fly.
“The reason we do that is to get them to adjust,” fullback Reggie Gilliam said. “So what they shift to is what we were planning on blocking anyway. Sometimes they can throw you a curveball and we’re like, ‘Whoa, we didn’t see this.’ A lot of the times we anticipate the shift.”
There are other factors as well. Philadelphia uses little motion. The Eagles like to give the QB a static read before the snap and have confidence that their elite receivers are going to win whoever they’re matched against. Cincinnati has confidence that quarterback Joe Burrow is an elite processor after the snap. If the look changes, Burrow will figure it out and get the ball to the right guy.
The 30,000-foot view
Tua Tagovailoa’s new contract averages $53 million over four years, which ranks fifth in the NFL, according to Spotrac.com. Dallas’ Dak Prescott averages $60 million. Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, Green Bay’s Jordan Love and Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence all average $55 million. Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes is 12th at $45 million. Josh Allen is 14th at $43 million. The Dolphins had no choice but to give their QB the big deal. They won’t be picking early in the draft anytime soon. Tagovailoa’s cap hit is only $9.5 million this season. It goes up to $59 million next season.Stats for the road
Star defensive tackle Christian Wilkins left Miami in free agency, a big loss. Wilkins was an ironman, playing 85% of the defensive snaps, second-most of any defensive tackle in the league. To compensate, Miami signed Calais Campbell, who just turned 38. He’s the oldest defensive player in the NFL. Yet the 6-foot-8 Campbell still is playing at a high level. He had a sack vs. Jacksonville and played 35 snaps (66%).Miami safeties Jevon Holland and Jordan Poyer were mostly interchangeable in Week 1, playing deep and in the box (about 25%) at the same rate. ... Jacksonville played man coverage on 73% of the snaps vs. Miami, highest rate of the week, and still allowed only 20 points. That’s from Fantasy Points Data. Impressive. It’s unlikely any other team will try that strategy vs. Miami. Expect the Bills to be zone-heavy. ... Josh Allen was pressured on 20% of his dropbacks vs. Arizona, the lowest pressure rate he has faced since Week 8 vs. Tampa Bay last year, via NFL Next Gen Stats. ... Keon Coleman’s 28-yard fourth-quarter catch had a completion probability of 16.3%, lowest in Week 1, according to NGS.