When new Lions offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn is designing the passing game, he might want to scale back the pre-snap motion concepts. His Detroit quarterback, Jared Goff, doesn’t fare too well with all the movement before he gets the ball.
In fact, Goff was the NFL’s worst passer in 2020 with pre-snap motion factored in, according to research from Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar. Goff’s final season with the Los Angeles Rams was a struggle when the team incorporated a lot of movement before the snap.
Sean McVay has one of the more interesting set of pre-snap concepts — everything from jet motions to motion to trips and bunch. So why is it, you may ask, that Jared Goff, McVay’s former quarterback, managed to complete 152 of 237 passes for 1,559 yards, 669 air yards, eight touchdowns, eight interceptions, and a passer rating of 80.1? Well, you have to see how the defense adjusts to that motion, so it could be said that for some quarterbacks, pre-snap movement can be just as confusing for them as it is for those defenses.
It will be interesting to see if the relative struggles carry over with Goff in Detroit, working behind a better (on paper) offensive line but a lesser receiving corps than he had to work with in Los Angeles.
In case you were wondering, Detroit’s Matthew Stafford was around the league average efficiency in 2020 with pre-snap motion.
Matthew Stafford, who now replaces Goff, completed 147 of 226 passes with pre-snap motion for 1,734 yards, 852 air yards, 13 touchdowns, five interceptions, and a passer rating of 98.2
Stafford was never a big proponent of lots of motion during his Detroit days, so it will also be interesting to see how he adapts to the increased use of pre-snap activity under McVay in Los Angeles.
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