The Miami Dolphins under head coach Mike McDaniel have revolutionized offensive football this season with their use of speed motion with their fastest players to create space and open throwing lanes. The Green Bay Packers have recently started utilizing this same motion with some of their core concepts and did so to great effect Sunday versus the Los Angeles Rams.
The fast motion is one the Packers have already used this season, where they will fast motion into a stack or bunch to get their receivers a free release and create space. Usually, the defense can’t bump fast enough, causing them to hesitate for a split second until they sort out their coverage rules. At that point, receivers in the pattern are already open because they essentially get a running head start.
This is an adjustment to the league-wide trend of defenses adjusting to jet motions across the formation. With jet motion, the defense has time to react and adjust accordingly. With a fast motion to a bunch or out wide on the same side, the defense has less time to adjust, leaving them vulnerable to coverage busts and blown assignments.
It’s unclear what the Dolphins are calling this motion, but Kyle Shanahan has dubbed it “cheat” motion because “It looks hard to stop people like Tyreek and Deebo and stuff with a running start. That’s usually only in the CFL. So it’s cool to get them running sideways and still find a way to hit it vertically.”
The Dolphins used Tyreek Hill on the motion to get him open early in the season on dig routes and used other receivers on the motion to get him open.
The motion is a way to get the receivers a running start. You can see the advantage this has for someone with Hill’s speed. It messes with the defense in two ways: 1) it creates potential mismatches by getting faster receivers on slower defenders and 2) it can open space by pulling the coverage apart horizontally.
The Packers have been using short fast motions into the formation from the outside since Week 1 to get receivers open across the middle.
