Pre-snap motions are pretty prevalent in NFL offenses these days, and Darrell Bevell's offense is no exception. Just off the top of my mind while watching the Seahawks ' preseason games, it seems like the Hawks use a pre-snap motion on almost every play, and sometimes several players motion before the egg is snapped.
It's not only wide receivers and tight ends though, the Hawks will regularly motion their running backs and fullbacks out of the backfield and onto the wing (or visa versa). Now, obviously, this isn't novel or unique to Bevell's offense, but I wanted to get up the conception and highlight a place where it was used well in the Seahawks matchup against the Vikings in PSW2.
But first as a refresher, why send a participant in motion?
Coordinators like to put their tight ends, fullbacks, running backs, and wide receivers in question because of a few reasons: first, it draws reactions from the defence and can disguise the offensive formation or strategy you're leaving for. When a player goes in question you can frequently see the defense reacting and communicating responsibilities to each other.
Second, depending on the defensive reaction, a quarterback can better discern whether it's a district or man defense. If a corner follows a receiver all across the area you generally know he's in man coverage.
Past that, it can be exploited to create mismatches to your benefit. You can do this by motioning a running back to the extension to be matched up against a linebacker. You can put the wet end out in the slot against a much smaller safety. These types of things.You can potentially see the defence in a vulnerable situation while motioning. As I said, splitting the TE out or motioning the FB out to the wing seems small but changes a lot for the defensive call, and the mind is to see this and capitalize on it.
You can use it to break tendencies as well - if you own a scratch and butter play but need to mask the look pre-snap you can follow out in a different look but motion in to what you need.
Most importantly though, it causes the denial to think. This is big if you're facing an aggressive defense because when they're thinking they're not attacking. As Scott put it when I was chatting with him near it, "cluttered mind = slow reaction"
Anyway, I thinking of it while re-watching the Hawks - Vikings game when the Hawks used a simple pre-snap motion to set up a low down catch from Charlie Whitehurst to Doug Baldwin.
1:56, 3rd Quarter. 3rd and 4. Hawks down 13-0, but driving. Key third down situation here with the Hawks on the Vikings 19 yard line. Here's the set:
You've got Charlie in the shotgun with Patrick Williams out left, Kris Durham in the slot (interesting, btw), and Doug Baldwin out on the right flank. You can see the Vikings are in press coverage with a single high free safety cover-1. They ran this rather a bit (and incidentally it's something the Hawks do a lot of too on defense).
You'll see Dougie Fresh go into motion left here in the future frame.
Baldwin motions left and michigan in a stack formation with Durham in presence of him. You can see the Vikings corner Cord Parks (hey, remember him!?) calling out responsibilities and now has backed off the air by a few yards. He's in man here so if Baldwin had kept going I'd assume he scarce would have followed him or passed him off to the guard on Durham. This constitution and motion works well versus man coverage because the recess now has to report for Baldwin running to the inner and therefore has to back off quite a ways.
Ball is snapped.
You can see Durham beat the jam here and the nickleback on him is playing inside contain. Baldwin uses Durham well here and doesn't make up his path until the absolute last second.
Now Baldwin has attached his route (a hobby out route) but the tree is nearly five yards off him because of the stack formation.
Makes for easy separation, something that would have been tougher if he'd been jammed at the line. In this case, the mere question in has worked like a charm. Go Hawks.
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