It’s the postseason in the NFL! Thirty-two teams started with dreams of a championship, and now 14 remain.

The 2024 season will not be remembered for schematic revolution — not on the scale of the Shanahan system or the RPO (run-pass option), when one idea becomes a winner and the league follows suit. Instead, it was a year for quiet innovation. Individual offenses that had always been at the forefront of the league meta, such as the Packers and the Rams, introduced new wrinkles to stay ahead of the curve. New assistants, such as Vic Fangio in Philadelphia and Aaron Kromer in Buffalo, installed personnel packages that added depth to existing contenders. And Brian Flores (Minnesota) and Aaron Glenn (Detroit) blitzed their butts off all season.

Let’s go deep on the coolest scheme and personnel innovations I’ve seen from the playoff teams this season. It’s not comprehensive — I didn’t get the Chiefs’ unbalanced sets or the Broncos’ screen game in there — nor is it meant to highlight the best schemes or most important matchups. It’s just the sickest stuff that the best teams are up to these days, and why they might be important over the next month.

Jump to a section:
GB | PHI | DET/MIN
BUF | LAR

Running out of the shotgun is hard.

This is an unavoidable truth of the NFL: It is harder to run from the gun than it is to run from under center. There are ways to tip the scales, of course, like involving the quarterback in the running game with option plays. Using RPOs to hold defenders in the second level. Using the pistol instead of the gun to disguise the side of the quarterback on which the ball will be handed off. But they are all solutions to the problem — that running from the gun is hard.

The teams that run the most from the gun are the usual suspects. The Eagles, Commanders and Colts lead the league in called runs from shotgun — that’s how they maximize their dual-threat quarterbacks. The Ravens rank sixth, as they’ve used more under-center snaps to maximize Derrick Henry this season. But sitting right there at fourth are the Packers, with 246 called runs from the gun.

Malik Willis‘ two starts conflate the numbers a bit (they had 31 gun runs in his Week 2 win over the Colts), but diving deeper into the numbers, it’s clear the Packers are up to something. Jordan Love has zero designed rushes from the gun; they are not using him like the other teams use their option quarterbacks. They sprinkle in RPOs, but they’re a far cry from Doug Pederson’s late-2010s Eagles in terms of usage. So how are they creating optionality in the backfield? How are they disguising what direction the run is headed?

Matt LaFleur has cribbed from the single wing offense to get it done, spinning Love around in circles.

Watch this handoff from the Packers’ Week 11 win against the Bears. Love does a full 360 at the mesh point, modeling a give to wide receiver Jayden Reed (11) before eventually sticking the ball in running back Josh Jacobs‘ (8) belly.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 6, 2025

This is the counter. It’s a run concept that has existed forever, and fitting up counter is a Day 1 install for the Bears’ defense. Before the motion, this is a great look for counter. Left guard Elgton Jenkins will pull and kick out the playside defensive end Montez Sweat (90), who is very wide, which creates a big alley for the run to hit. Center Josh Myers and right guard Sean Rhyan have great down-block angles into the Bears’ defensive tackles, and right tackle Zach Tom climbing up to MIKE linebacker Tremaine Edmunds (49) with an excellent angle to seal him off from the playside. And tight end Tucker Kraft will pull into the alley, while Jacobs will run off his block on weakside linebacker T.J. Edwards (53). Here’s how that looks:

After the motion, this play is still blocked up the exact same way — nothing in the front has changed. But look at how the motion stretches the Chicago defense horizontally.

Both Edmunds and Edwards have to step with Reed after Love fakes the give in the first 180 degrees of the turn. Safety Jonathan Owens (36) also has to step downhill to the potential Reed run, which makes him late to provide support to the run up the middle. Safety Kevin Byard III (31) also gets his responsibilities spun around, ending up jumping outside the block from wide receiver Malik Heath (18) when he should be crashing inside. Because the Packers got great angles at the first level and created confusion in the second level, they get a perfectly-blocked 12-yard run.

One can argue that the 360 and fake to Reed is ancillary — that this run would have been great with or without the motion. But that’s the point of window dressing. If counter was going to hit no matter what, then it was going to hit no matter what. But LaFleur still throws the dressing on to make the margins bigger and the potential for explosive plays higher.

Take this play from Week 12 against the 49ers. Here, the Packers send Kraft in motion at the snap and end up with four bodies in the backfield: Kraft, Reed, Jacobs and Love. That’s a lot for a defense to interpret at the snap.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 6, 2025

But notice when the Packers snap this ball, right when Kraft is nestled behind the guard. This position is similar to the “quarterback” position in the single wing offense — back when the quarterback was a guy who was literally a-quarter-of-the-way-back in the backfield. Compare the Packers’ formation with this screenshot of the oldest-looking single wing film I could find on the internet (a 1937 clip shared by Dan Casey on X).

The Packers just want to run split zone, with the offensive line zoning left and upfield while Kraft slingshots back to the right and seals off the unblocked end. But the Niners are in a run blitz — they’re sending a pressure off the offense’s right and slanting the defensive tackles accordingly. The unblocked blitzer — nickel Deommodore Lenoir (2) — is totally neutralized by the threat of the Reed handoff. He slows down, worried he’s getting quickly outflanked by Reed; the off-ball linebackers Fred Warner (54) and De’Vondre Campbell (59), who were already moving that way to account for the run blitz, are also pulled by the flow of Reed and Kraft that direction.

As the Niners’ defensive tackles get washed out of the way by a nice adjustment along the Packers’ line, Jacobs has a huge upfield alley. Warner is never even blocked on this play, nor is Lenoir. Those are two of the 49ers’ best defensive players, and they were erased by formation, motion and ball fakes. That’s how a coordinator schemes up a running game and makes the numbers work in his favor.

Motioning into and out of the backfield is key to making this single wing redux sing. By adding a player to the backfield late in the down, the Packers are forcing the defense to adjust their run fit rules on the fly — and getting a player moving at high speed right at the snap, which is always an advantage.

Let’s go to the Seahawks game in Week 15. Take a look at how snapping the ball with Kraft on the move gives him a great angle to help on the double-team with Tom (50), which creates the alley for the sweep to Reed to turn upfield. This play and the previous one go hand in hand because the Seahawks have to worry about Kraft cruising with the motion and leading the sweep, just as they have to worry about him slamming on the brakes and leading for Jacobs on a split zone or gap-blocking run.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 6, 2025

On the season, the Packers have 146 running back carries from the gun with motion at the snap; the next-closest team is the Ravens with 79. Nobody charts “handoffs with the quarterback 360-ing,” but I promise the Packers would lead the league in that, too. This is how they’ve made the gun running game viable — by grafting single wing run conflicts into a modern passing offense. And it has trickled to other teams: The 49ers and Chiefs have both had their dalliances with spinning handoffs over the past few years and have ticked up in their usage this season, concurrent with the Packers’ success. This is how Green Bay’s running game, with a true option quarterback, is thriving with the best of them.

If you’ve been a football nerd for a minute, you’ve heard the legend of the Vic Fangio defensive game plan against the 2018 Rams, and how Bill Belichick copied it for his Super Bowl game plan against the same opponent. The keystone of that defensive approach was the 40 front, a four-man front with tons of big bodies on the interior to prevent double-teams and two edge-setters on either side of the formation to force opponent runs back into those big bodies. Here’s a good snapshot of what Fangio, then the defensive coordinator for the Bears, showed coach Sean McVay that December, and what Belichick initiated in the Super Bowl.

Both Belichick and the 2018 version of Fangio used traditional, heavier bodies as their edge players in these fronts: Leonard Floyd and Kyle Van Noy. They are guys who traditionally rush the passer but can drop into coverage on occasion. In 2024, the league is a lighter place. The Eagles, where Fangio is now the coordinator, have light defensive ends who could play well in this position, as Floyd once did —Nolan Smith Jr. and Bryce Huff. But instead of using those players, Fangio is using Zack Baun.

Baun was a rotational edge rusher in New Orleans before he joined the Eagles as a free agent last offseason — always a bit of an on-ball, off-ball linebacker hybrid but never a fully realized one. When Baun was signed, Fangio had a vision of him playing mostly off-ball linebacker and moved him there accordingly. But certainly, somewhere in the back of Fangio’s mind was the potential of walking Baun up into these 40 fronts as one of his edge setters.

This front first started reappearing for the Eagles in Week 3, when they faced a Saints offense coordinated by Klint Kubiak, a chip off the Kyle Shanahan block. By reducing the front and jamming up interior gaps, the Eagles ensured double-teams would struggle to climb to Nakobe Dean, an excellent run-and-chase linebacker who struggles taking on size in space. They also allowed their excellent defensive tackle room — Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis and Milton Williams — to regularly see single blocks and authored backfield havoc.

Watch the Eagles initially align in a four-man front, then bring Baun down to an edge and reduce the front on the opposite side. This is a very peculiar front — there’s no edge presence on the weakside at all! — but Fangio is comfortable living in this world. Look at the wall built by Baun, Williams (93) and Moro Ojomo (97). That’s a tough look to run zone into for opponents.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 6, 2025

If Fangio has been doing this for six-plus years, why write about it now? Well, Baun (and some other Eagles, such as rookie nickel Cooper DeJean and Williams, an impossibly underrated defensive lineman) brings a level of versatility to this front that makes it even more dangerous. The past “outside linebacker” Fangio deployed in this spot was not really a coverage player, and it certainly was not someone who could legitimately line up at off-ball linebacker and play the position well. Baun can do it all.

Watch this snap against the Commanders. The Eagles once again move late into their 40 front — they love it in both their red zone and the opponent’s — with Baun up on the line on the weak side of the formation. It would be hard for the Commanders to give the ball up the gut here and get some more breathing room, given that the Eagles have almost a hat for a hat between the tackles. Instead, Washington calls a quick pass with four players out strong.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 6, 2025

After reading pass, Baun drops off the line and is immediately in the slant window, where quarterback Jayden Daniels first wants to go with the ball. Now Daniels bounces back strongside, but as Baun works to the middle of the field, Dean (17) also moves toward the strongside, as if the two were connected. Dean takes away the hook from tight end Zach Ertz (86), and now Daniels is flustered and late to his checkdown. The Eagles rally for a huge tackle for loss.

Because Baun has this versatility, the Eagles don’t need to tell offenses what front they’re giving with their personnel in the huddle. Here are two snaps against the Rams in Week 12. The same Eagles defensive personnel is on the field for both, but on first-and-10, they are in a traditional four-down front with a ton of pass-rush juice on the field. Two snaps later, on third-and-3, they reduce the front and bring Baun down to an on-ball alignment.

This time, they’re not in a true 40 front. They’re sending a blitz and dropping Baun off the line. Just watch the play Baun makes in coverage on Rams receiver Puka Nacua after settling into his zone, though. There aren’t many players in the league who can do this, while also setting legitimate edges in the running game.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 6, 2025

Watch for the Eagles’ No. 53 in the postseason. He’ll spend most of his time off-ball, but when the Eagles get a good running team that uses condensed formations, he’ll sneak up to the line of scrimmage and present a difficult wrinkle for offenses to counter. (The Vikings, Lions and Packers all qualify here, and clips against the Commanders and Rams are already in this piece.) As unlikely as this sentence would have been a year ago, Baun is one of the most versatile players in all of football right now.

When the season began, the world was in awe at Brian Flores’ blitz-heavy approach to defense — a refreshing twist in a league increasingly running shell coverages and forcing throws underneath. The Vikings have blitzed on 41.7% of opponent dropbacks, the highest rate of any defense.

But since Week 7, their blitz rate has been outpaced by two teams. The Buccaneers are one, and they are always up there in blitz rate. But more meaningfully, the Lions have blitzed on 42.5% of their opponents’ dropbacks since Week 7. That was their first game of the season without star pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson; before he went down, they were at 30.3%.

The Lions and Vikings are both among the league leaders in blitz rate, but they blitz in remarkably different styles. And comparing and contrasting them helps us understand both defenses as they enter the playoffs.

I’ll start with the Lions. Defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn has done a remarkable job turning into the skid of defensive injuries. Absent Hutchinson, star defensive tackle Alim McNeill, multiple sub-package linebackers and starting cornerback Carlton Davis III, Glenn acknowledges he doesn’t have the horses in coverage to win without affecting the quarterback — he must sell out to hurry and hassle the pocket if he’s to get stops on the defensive side.

Accordingly, the Lions sell out to win early in the down. They have put their corners in press man coverage on 26.1% of snaps this season, which is the league’s highest rate by a country mile and the highest rate of any season since 2020. They want to deny the quick throw at the expense of getting beat deep, because they believe their blitz will get home before downfield routes can develop.

Without a dominant outside edge rusher on the field, Glenn’s blitzes include a heavy dose of loops, stunts and twists. Glenn isn’t necessarily blitzing to get the blitzer free, but rather to occupy the running back in protection so he can free up a defensive lineman elsewhere.

Here’s a great example from Week 17 against the 49ers. The Lions are in press coverage over the slots and in tight man coverage otherwise on third-and-10. Both tight end George Kittle in the middle of the field and wide receiver Jauan Jennings (15) get open, whom quarterback Brock Purdy targets. With pressure coming, Purdy knows he doesn’t have time to read this out. He has to pick a matchup now and throw.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

There is immediate pressure from defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike, who is quietly having a big impact in McNeill and Hutchinson’s absences. Left guard Nick Zakelj (63), usually a backup, gets swiped away quickly by Onwuzurike, as Zakelj is momentarily unsure if he needs to engage Onwuzurike or Za’Darius Smith (99), who stood up just opposite him before the snap. The left tackle gets a little deeper than Zakelj anticipated, and now there’s a path for Onwuzurike to the quarterback.

But watch the blitz path from the linebackers, especially Jack Campbell (46) who starts off ball then careens into the center. Campbell is part of a cross dog blitz with Smith. The running back is initially worried about Campbell, for whom he is responsible in pass protection. Campbell’s job is to take two, occupying both the back and picking the center, so that Smith can loop around him and have a free rush to the quarterback behind the back.

This pick-and-loop idea plays out more cleanly in Week 7 against the Vikings on third-and-9. Watch Campbell once again set the pick on the center (who goes flying!) for McNeill, who loops behind him while linebacker Alex Anzalone (34) rushes late to occupy the back. The object of his rush was always to get McNeill and Anzalone against the back, two against one. And while it takes a little bit of time to develop, the tight coverage from safety Brian Branch (32) on Minnesota receiver Jalen Nailor (83) ensures this is not an easy throw.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

Both of these clips came on third-and-long, and that isn’t an accident. The Lions want to load up the box, stop the run and get offenses into a blitzing down. On late downs this season — third-and-3 or more, as well as fourth downs — the Lions are blitzing on 49.1% of dropbacks in the post-Hutchinson injury era. Take, by contrast, the Vikings, who on the same downs are blitzing 28.9% of the time — just below league average.

Again, that’s because the Vikings and Lions blitz in remarkably different ways. Minnesota isn’t blitzing on late downs; it’s blitzing on the early ones.

On first and second downs, the Vikings are blitzing an astonishing 46.2% of the time — 10% more than the Lions. On just first down — a down on which, allegedly, the defense has no clear tip on what the opponent is up to — the Vikings are blitzing on 49% of dropbacks. Only three teams have blitzed more on first down in the NFL Next Gen Stats database, which goes back to 2016: the 2020 Steelers, the 2019 Buccaneers and the 2023 Vikings, who paced the entire field with 62.3%. The silliest number ever.

The Lions are blitzing so the pass rush can get home while the press coverage hangs on and wins early; the Vikings are blitzing so that the ball comes out now and their secondary can rally and tackle against the quick game. Compare how the Lions’ corners are aligned compared to the Vikings’ CBs when either team blitzes, and how it affects the behavior of the quarterback. The Lions are trying to force tight-window throws under duress on money downs. Meanwhile, the Vikings are forcing quick, underneath throws that offer only incremental gains — and if they take away that quick option, or if a quarterback hesitates, they punish them with the rush.

There’s a sequence from the Vikings’ Week 2 game against the 49ers that has lived in my head all season. San Francisco pretty predictably slides its protection away from left tackle Trent Williams, which makes sense; Williams is very good and likely needs less help than the rest of the 49ers’ offensive line combined. And Flores wants to take advantage of this. On a second-and-1 in the third quarter, the Vikings have defensive tackle Jerry Tillery (99) stunt inside the left guard while edge rusher Jonathan Greenard (58) takes a wide rush onto the outside shoulder of Williams. This creates a big gap in the slide protection for linebacker Blake Cashman (51) to take on the running back one-on-one on a blitz.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

Now, Purdy is able to make a scramble drill play, so the 49ers get another first-and-10. On that next play, Flores again sends the ‘backer to Williams’ side, this time knifing in with Greenard and looping Ivan Pace Jr. (0) around the outside. This makes the running back’s job a little harder in pass protection, as he now has to protect his outside shoulder alone. Pace collapses the integrity of the pocket and forces Purdy into another scramble drill, which ends with a sack (for 0 yards, but still).

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

Two drives later, another first-and-10. The Vikings are sending the same pressure from a different front, and this time, the back isn’t in to help protect. Purdy knows he’s hot off his left side, from which an unblocked rush is coming. (Williams is good, but he can’t take two guys at once.) The 49ers’ receivers stumble in their releases, and Purdy can’t get that quick-game checkdown he needs to beat Flores’ pressures. He takes a big early-down sack.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

Unsurprisingly, the Vikings came with the same pressure look a few plays later on the same drive, now on second-and-9 — three linemen to the offense’s right, sending the linebacker to Williams’ side away from the slide. Only this time, Cashman sets a pick for edge rusher Dallas Turner (15), and Williams never sees left guard Aaron Banks (65) try to pass the play off. Cashman slithers free for the sack.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

Look to the top of the screen, where Purdy wants to deliver this ball. Jennings is running a quick, out-breaking route — the sort of route the Lions would deny by pressing in the slot and closing the window. The Vikings instead are trapping the route, with outside cornerback Shaquill Griffin (1) letting the downfield receiver run free to squat on Jennings’ route with eyes on Purdy. The quarterback can’t throw this.

When QBs are accustomed to having quick-game release valves to beat pressures, defenses can manufacture a sack by squeezing their first option and forcing them to hold the ball for another beat. Running back Jordan Mason (24) is wide open on the opposite side of the formation, but Purdy doesn’t have enough time to get there.

Many of the Vikings’ best defensive plays have come from this principle: Show the quarterback expected space pre-snap, then take it away suddenly post-snap by dropping defenders off the line of scrimmage and rotating coverages. That moment of confusion turns the opposing quarterback statuesque and can have a similar effect on offensive lines shuffling through all the potential blitzers. That is, if Greenard or Andrew Van Ginkel hasn’t already won their one-on-one and gotten home anyway.

When the Vikings play on Monday and the Lions play in the divisional round, watch for different blitzes at different times. Minnesota will send pressures on early downs to lull opposing quarterbacks into quick, underneath distributions — then suddenly, when they win a rep in coverage, they’ll end a drive with an early-down sack. The Lions will look instead to suffocate the run and get an early incompletion before turning the burners to high on late downs, sending multiple bodies from the second level and to crash, bang and shatter — all to make that downfield, tight-window throw all the more difficult.

Build around your franchise quarterback, they say. Surround him with options. Build a team that can put five pass catchers out into the concept and beat defenses with every single one — Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs and Joe Mixon; Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins and Chase Brown; A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith and Saquon Barkley; Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams and Jahmyr Gibbs. Overwhelm the opponent with speed and skill.

The Bills have done this. They used early draft picks on Dalton Kincaid, James Cook and Keon Coleman, and they traded for Amari Cooper. It would be an easy mistake to believe the 2024 Bills were doing the same thing the 2021 and 2022 Bills were doing: living in spread formations, getting five out in the concept and winning in space with speed. But the Bills have a secret fifth weapon. No, it’s not a late-round receiver or free agent running back. It’s offensive tackle Alec Anderson.

Of course, the Bills already have a starting tackle duo, and it’s one of the best in football. Left tackle Dion Dawkins and right tackle Spencer Brown never come on the field. But they are occasionally joined by Anderson in the Bills’ jumbo package, with six offensive linemen out in the huddle. The Bills have run 148 snaps of jumbo this season, the most of any team since 2021.

Here’s the best bit: The Bills are also leading the league in yards per play from jumbo (6.0), and they are the only team in the Next Gen Stats database to average at least 6.0 yards per play on at least 100 snaps from the formation. This is, arguably, the best supersized season we’ve ever seen.

Unsurprisingly, the Bills are largely a running team with six offensive linemen on the field. They have 104 designed runs to 39 dropbacks. And critically, they are not a six offensive linemen team on late downs. In fact, 74 of their 104 jumbo runs have come on first-and-10. This isn’t a short-yardage gag like the tush push; this is a useful offensive package Buffalo uses to get its drives started.

On first down, the Bills have a lower success rate in jumbo packages than they do in their base offense, but they average far more yards per play (6.7 to 5.1) because their explosive play rate is so high. This season, 11.5% of rushes and 28% of passes have been explosive in jumbo, relative to 7.6% and 11.0% in the base offense.

Here’s one such explosive run on the outside zone from Week 16 against the Patriots — a game the Bills were losing 14-0 at the time. Watch Anderson, lined up at tight end, work to the outside shoulder of the defensive end while fullback Reggie Gilliam (41) climbs upfield to the end’s inside shoulder. This double-team at the point of attack on outside zone, in which a defensive end is reached then suddenly broadsided by a fullback or motion man on the inside, has been popularized by the 49ers’ offense under Shanahan and cribbed by much of the league.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

Cook can follow that double-team all the way to the boundary if he wants, outracing safety Marte Mapu (15) to the corner. But Cook’s at his best cutting back, and right guard O’Cyrus Torrence (64) has excellent contact with the backside linebacker while left guard David Edwards (76) and Dawkins (73) are washing the Patriots’ defensive line downstream. Cook cuts right behind the excellent reach block from center Conner McGovern (66), and it’s barbecue chicken from there.

The use of Anderson as a blocking tight end was likely an invention born of necessity. Neither Kincaid nor Dawson Knox, the Bills’ two starting tight ends, are good blockers, so it’s hard to run anything strong (i.e. to the tight end’s side of the formation) when they are in the game. In fact, the Bills are one of the best teams running weak (away from the tight end) in the NFL, and they rely on it heavily without Anderson on the field. In five offensive linemen sets, 57% of the Bills’ runs hit weakside; but in six-OL sets, the tendency flips, and 65% of the Bills’ runs hit strongside.

We can see how this plays out on this rep in Week 13 against the 49ers. The Bills are under center with Anderson at tight end and two wide receivers (Khalil Shakir and Mack Hollins) nestled beside him.

Expecting run, the 49ers are heavy in the box, and they’re worried about the potential for a zone run weakside. (The Bills have run inside zone 76 times this season, and 71 of those have gone to the weak side.) The nose is playing head-up on the center, and the Niners have three run defenders for two potential blockers on the weakside. On the strongside, they’re five-for-five, but they can feel good about two of those blockers only being receivers (even though Hollins and Shakir are pretty good blockers, pound for pound).

Instead, the Bills are just running Iso to the strong side — about as simple as a run can be in the NFL. Watch the double-team between Torrence and Brown climb up to Warner (54), but also watch how much displacement Anderson gets climbing up to cornerback Charvarius Ward (7), who got yanked into the box because that’s where all the receivers are. Anderson takes Ward so far upfield that backside pursuit from Warner and linebacker Dee Winters (53) has to take the long way around, which gives Cook more space to gain yardage after he breaks through the first level. And look at the blocks from Shakir and Hollins! No block, no rock in Buffalo’s receiver room.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

Unsurprisingly, the play-action pass game from the Bills in jumbo is enormous: 11 of 37 dropbacks have resulted in a gain of at least 16 yards. None of the designs are particularly revolutionary, as it’s just such a sincere play-action fake that space inevitably blooms in behind the linebacker level of the defense. Here’s the easiest completion on Y-cross in the history of the NFL, coming against the Seahawks. But it’s made so easy because the Bills initially have three “eligibles” on the offense’s right (Knox, Anderson and Cooper) before faking zone weak and ending up with a three-level stretch on the offense’s left.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

Seahawks linebacker Tyrel Dodson (0) must choose to either sink underneath the cross or get connected to the back, and when he steps forward, Knox has all the room in the world to run away from linebacker Ernest Jones IV (13). Anderson stays in as a sixth pass protector on a concept that never needed five out in the first place.

Intuitively, the Bills rely more heavily on their jumbo package when facing defenses that base out of nickel personnel, but they’ll play it against anyone. This postseason, it may not be heavily featured against the Chiefs (four snaps in their game earlier this season) or the Ravens (three). But if they draw the right opponent, watch for No. 70 to come jogging onto the field on early downs, as the Bills’ renewed commitment to the running game shines in their supersized sets.

I want to show a complete and total bastardization of the NFL game we all love.

No, it’s not snapping the ball with a player in motion. Everyone is doing that these days, and the Rams remain among the league leaders after popularizing it over the past five-plus years. Nor is it running routes from condensed sets and bunches, something the Rams have been doing for quite some time, too.

It is snapping the ball with a player in motion, sprinting into a bunched set and running through the bunch into the route. This play, on third-and-8 in Week 3 against the 49ers, is sneaky nonsense.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

The competitive advantage here is clear. Before wide receiver Tutu Atwell (5) moves, the 49ers already have their coverage rules in place. Outside cornerback Isaac Yiadom (22) will handle Atwell in man coverage, and the nickel and safety will deal with the releases from the tight stacked alignment in the slot. But as Atwell moves into the bunch, the defense has two options. It can either adjust to a bunch check on the fly, in which all three defenders now have different rules and responsibilities relative to the release of the receivers, or it can stay in the current coverage call, which leaves Yiadom with terrible leverage and a big cushion on Atwell.

Easy pitch and catch. First down.

No team is motioning more receivers into bunches at the snap than the Rams. Atwell leads the league with 26 such routes, and Nacua is second with 20. (Remember, Nacua has played in only 11 games this season.) In fact, the entire Sean McVay tree dominates this niche usage of formational wizardry. Behind Atwell and Nacua are Drake London, Jordan Addison, Darnell Mooney, Keenan Allen, Ray-Ray McCloud III and Jayden Reed. Every single one of those players is coached by an offensive mind who studied under McVay.

Defenses have specific coverage checks for dealing with bunches because they are very hard to manage. Defenders can’t press anyone except the point man, there’s plenty of opportunity for natural rubs and picks, and receivers often switch on releases. The guy who was previously the innermost man suddenly becomes the outermost man, and vice versa. But because the Rams motion in and out of bunches so consistently, it’s hard for defenses to get lined up and communicate.

Take this touchdown against the Lions back in Week 1. The Lions are in true man coverage — outside corner on outermost receiver, slot defender on point man and cornerback Carlton Davis III (23) bumped over from the other side of the formation to man up Cooper Kupp (10) in the slot. The Lions are in what’s called “lock and level” against the bunch: Each man has a man, and they’re lined up at different levels to try to avoid picks and rubs.

Well, the Rams don’t just snap it and let the Lions sort it out. They run Kupp in motion, then boomerang him right back to his spot in the bunch. Davis trips as he mirrors Kupp, but it doesn’t really matter. By giving Kupp a running start at the snap, they ensure he’ll have great leverage on Davis to the flat. It’s an easy completion on first-and-goal from the 9-yard line, and with the stumble, it’s an easy race to the pylon, too.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

A big part of the Rams’ motion-into-bunch game is their screen game. Of course, wide receiver screens aren’t very thrilling, but they’re an integral part of a balanced running game. By tagging screens to runs, the Rams can ensure they don’t run into bad boxes and stay ahead of the sticks, something that has been integral for much of the season with a bad offensive line.

When the Rams motion into the bunch, they often get outside corners with a huge amount of cushion, as defenses want their defenders to have space and time to interpret the releases and find their man. But now, the motion man has two point-of-attack blockers for only one defender near the line of scrimmage, which creates easy screen looks to tag behind running plays. This is where having a receiver like Nacua, who embraces contact and breaks tackles like a running back, is so valuable. Watch him here against the Saints.

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— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) January 7, 2025

When the Rams take on the Vikings — who love to play their corners off — on Monday, watch for this bunch screen game tagged to their running plays, especially off pre-snap motion. And when they absolutely need a bucket on third down, don’t be surprised to see their receivers sprinting into the bunch as the ball is snapped to create easy picks and test their opponent’s rules. It’s hacking, and it works like a charm.