Earlier this week, Rams coach Sean McVay tried to downplay the sentence added to the rule book regarding “cheat motion.” On Saturday, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel most definitely did not downplay it.
“To execute in the game of football, I would say it’s a priority to know the rules,” McDaniel told when asked by reporters about the new sentence regarding abrupt or forward pre-snap motion. “Fortunately, we have NFL officials here at practice. Currently — they were here yesterday, they’ll be here today. And we also have a little a cheat code, if you will, a member of the competition committee [G.M. Chris Grier] resides in an office that shares a wall with me. So [we’re] very, very proactive in knowing exactly what the rules are and anything that we do, we’re either adjusting or catering to any sort of rule emphasis and we’re going to try to keep it that way.”
He was asked whether the new sentence is not a rule change but an effort to emphasize the existing rules.
“I think you read it as it reads,” McDaniel said. “The emphasis is clearly stated. If you interpret that as exclusively timing motions, you better not simulate the snap counter. You’d better not move forward. And our motions will have to be legal for them to work unless we just want to run minus-five-yard plays, so I think we’re fine with that. We’ll always cater to the rules and I think to simulate the snap is illegal and we should not do that.”
Here’s the new sentence from the 2024 rule book: “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).”
“Cheat motion” is effective in large part because the movements are often abrupt and players routinely start moving forward just before the snap. Joe Rose of WQAM in Miami, who works on radio call of Dolphins games, said Friday that other teams (including the Patriots and former head coach Bill Belichick) complained about Dolphins players moving forward before the snap.
While the rules aren’t changing, the teams that use “cheat motion” (mainly, the Rams, Dolphins, and 49ers) are on notice. Also on notice are officials, who’ll have to spot the player moving forward just before the snap and send a signal from brain to hand to pull the flag while also sending a signal from brain to mouth to blow the whistle and kill a play that has already started — with linemen colliding at full speed.
If officials fail to call it, it will keep happening. And teams will keep doing it. And other teams will complain about it. Just like last year.
Which is why it’s actually smart for coaches who use it to downplay it. Unless and until the officials are willing and able to consistently call it, the teams that have perfected it should keep doing it.