If you’ve been a part of the NFL community for any amount of time in the last several years, you’ve likely heard an awful lot about play-action and motion.
How important are they, and how are the top offenses utilizing this?
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In the late 2010s, pre-snap motion and motion started to emerge amongst the league’s most innovative teams. Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay were the two main pioneers of the system, utilizing motion to create their imaginative, dynamic offenses.
Since their introduction, coaches have begun to follow suit -- after all, it very much is a copycat league. Many of these coaches have come off of the Shanahan tree themselves: See new Jacksonville Jaguars’ head coach Liam Coen and offensive coordinator Grant Udinsk as examples.
Both can tie their lineage back to Shanahan, as their mentors McVay and Kevin O’Connell stem from that same tree that started with the then-Washington Redskins.
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Play-action is a little more of a well-known concept. Nonetheless, it’s almost become synonymous with offensive success, especially as of late as teams have left less defenders in the box, forcing secondary players to be more aggressive in run defense.
Well, how important are using motion and play-action?
If you look at the raw data, they certainly are not insignificant. Starting with motion, teams average 7.3 yards per pass attempt with motion, compared to just 7.0 without. Similarly, teams average 4.5 yards per carry with motion, as opposed to 4.3 without.
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While 0.3 and 0.2-yard differences per attempt may seem small on their own, but compounded over the course of the game or a season and that difference means something. It means a lot.
In regards to play-action, the difference is a little more exaggerated. Teams utilizing play-action averaged 8.1 yards per attempt, contrasted by a mere 6.8 yards without. That isn’t necessarily as surprising, however, as teams generally do throw further downfield during play-action passes.
Let’s take a look at this season and how teams utilized these two concepts.
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In 2024, teams used an average motion % of 53% and play-action of 26%. The Los Angeles Rams led the league in motion % (74.6%), while the Detroit Lions did so in play-action (38.4%).
Those are two offenses that anyone should want to emulate.
I wanted to see which teams utilized these concepts, so a composite ranking of teams that utilize these most was made. Of the top-12 teams, 10 made the playoffs. When looking at the bottom 12, only two made the postseason.
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That’s a HUGE discrepancy. Players certainly matter, however, these offenses driven by heavy motion use and play-action are maximizing their roster, regardless of personnel.
For context for Jaguars fans, Jacksonville ranked 26th in motion and 21st in play-action use, finishing 27th overall in the composite rankings. Just one team ranked below them made the playoffs, the Denver Broncos.
The two remaining teams who didn’t reach the playoffs but placed top 12 are generally playoff teams with dominant offenses, the Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers.
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Even great coaches can’t overcome significant injuries sometimes. The NFL is very much a game comprised of luck and skill. Injuries, roster, coaching staff, strength of schedule all play a crucial role in determining how good or badly a team performs any given year.
That said, if one can mitigate chance as much as possible, it would behoove them to do so. It seems the NFL’s use of motion and play-action has proven successful as almost all of this season’s playoff teams and high-powered offenses featured heavy use of each.
The introduction of Coen and Udinski should do wonders for the Jacksonville Jaguars as both used these two concepts masterfully last season, leading a pair of elite offenses to the postseason
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