A crazy thing happened before the Giants completed a 16-yard pass to get out of an unmanageable first-and-20 situation … and again before both of Saquon Barkley’s 68- and 33-yard runs … and again before Chris Myarick’s game-tying touchdown catch.
A receiver or a running back motioned across the line of scrimmage.
After two seasons ranking at or near the bottom of the NFL in usage of motion — hovering around 25 percent of plays — the new-look Giants offense employed the extra element on 38 of 60 snaps in Week 1, according to CBS Sports.
“Any time you can distort the box — whether it’s creating a numbers count, getting guys in different spots, influencing second-level and third-level defenders — that helps, whether it’s pass or run,” offensive coordinator Mike Kafka said. “It helps also with the offensive line getting certain angles on blocks. It can help in the pass game where you are creating certain types of leverages. There are definitely a lot of benefits to it.”
Other than scoring more points — the Giants averaged an NFL-low 16.3 points under former play-callers Jason Garrett and Freddie Kitchens — the biggest difference in the offense during a 21-20 win against the Titans was the modernization. Traditional pre-snap motion and at-the-snap motion for fly sweeps — a receiver comes behind the quarterback as if ready to take an in-step handoff — were both utilized.
“There’s just a quick half-second you have to read that [fly sweep] and make sure it’s not real — or else you get hit for a 50-yard run,” said former Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, who was the booth analyst for Fox. “When you are running zone-read, the idea is you distort the read of the linebackers. Gaps are too hard to find, and the picture is now blurry because you’ve sent the smoke and mirrors idea of somebody buzzing across their face, and then you are hitting them from the other direction.”
It didn’t take long to see the benefits of melding together two of the NFL’s most explosive offenses. Head coach Brian Daboll came from the Bills and hired Kafka away from the Chiefs, where motion was used on about 65 percent of plays last season, according to ESPN.
“This whole offense is pretty different than any offense I’ve ever been in,” receiver Sterling Shepard said. “It’s tough to grasp, but whenever you get it, you can see how explosive it can be.”
Sanchez was schooled in motion by some of the preeminent West Coast Offense minds of this century while at USC.
“If you are just running motion for the sake of making your plays sound longer and cooler, that’s the stupidest thing — you might as well just line up in a static formation. Even if you are going to give stuff away, at least you are going to run the play right,” Sanchez recalled being told. “The purpose of motion is to get information from the defense. If you don’t know exactly, it will at least eliminate certain options.”
The Giants’ new multipronged approach to motion created mismatches, allowed a running, extra half-step on defensive backs, neutralized a physical pass rush by tiring out big bodies with lateral movement instead of up-field charges, deciphered man-versus-zone coverage and more, Sanchez said. When the Titans didn’t react, the Giants handed off to Kadarius Toney for a 19-yard gain on a fly sweep.
“That’s not, Day 1, easy stuff to do,” Sanchez said. “For Kafka, knowing what he knows and how much he is going to grow, and with Daboll, all his knowledge and experience, that’s so real. They do it for the right reasons and at the right times. It sounds so simple, but it’s something they are so well-versed on because of their backgrounds, that it’s only going to help them.”
If it is going to continue, the Giants will need to stay healthier than in the past. One likely reason the offense minimized motion the past two seasons was a revolving door of receivers and tight ends that weeded out advanced concepts from the playbook to minimize mistakes.
“It’s a lot of moving parts,” Shepard said. “This game is about inches, and it’s the small things. Any time you can mix up the defense that way and get a chance to see what they’re in, you can get a beat on them, and it helps us out.”