Could NFL officiating go against the New Orleans Saints this year? The days of the Saints secondary leading the league in yards lost to penalties are behind us, but they’ll need to be careful rolling out their new offense in the fall. A system derived from the one that Kyle Shanahan has made famous with the San Francisco 49ers may have one less tool in its toolbox with a new NFL rules change.
As noted by NBC Sports’ Mike Florio, the NFL added a new sentence to Rule 7, Article 4, Section 2 of their official rulebook: “Any eligible backfield player who changes his stance does not have to come to a complete stop prior to the snap, as long as his actions are not abrupt (false start) or forward (illegal motion).”
While it’s been pioneered by Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, his former boss Shanahan has coined the term for this pre-snap movement technique as “cheat motion, because it’s cheating” by putting a receiver in motion behind a teammate, effectively creating a run route at the snap. It’s a big challenge for the defense to counter, and the results speak for themselves. So does the NFL taking action to level the playing fielld.
This could be a big deal for the Saints. They’re planning on using significantly more motion in 2024 — not just after the snap with play action, but before the ball is snapped by sending receivers in motion behind the line of scrimmage. Klint Kubiak was hired as their new offensive coordinator and play caller explicitly for his year of experience in Shanahan’s system, as well as their shared background in Gary Kubiak’s offense.
You might recall the receivers drawing a lot of fouls at midseason for false starts and illegal formation penalties. That coincided with an uptick in pre-snap motion that they hadn’t been coached on intensely. Chris Olave was flagged for a false start on one such play in Week 5, as was Rashid Shaheed, who was penalized for it again in Week 10. Tight ends Juwan Johnson and Foster Moreau also picked up a couple of fouls for early movement during that time.
Kubiak’s new coaching staff must make this a point of emphasis, but you don’t need to tell them that. It says a lot that this rule change was discussed so little until Florio picked up on it. It’s not like McDaniel, Shanahan and their players have been complaining every day after practice. Maybe it won’t be that noticeable a change after all. This could be tough to enforce with such snap decisions.
Still, it’s frustrating to see the Saints arriving late to the party (they really should have moved on from Pete Carmichael and Sean Payton’s stagnant system a year sooner), but it is what it is. There are so many rules benefiting offenses these days that we’ll give this one to the defense. Ultimately it’s on the Saints to know the rules inside and out, and fully take advantage of what’s going in their favor as far as protecting passers and pass catchers.
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