In just a short time under head coach Kyle Shanahan the 49ers have morphed into one of the best offenses in the NFL. Alas, the 49ers are in the Super Bowl and life is going to be miserable for Bay Area Raider fans for the next couple weeks and probably longer.
Shanahan has arguably taken the title as the most respected offensive coach in the NFL and one of the tools the 49ers used to all season to keep defenses off balance was pre-snap motions and shifts. According to Pro Football Focus data, San Francisco used pre-snap movement on 78 percent of snaps this year with the next closest team being Baltimore at 71 percent.
Overall, the entire league is trending up when it comes to pre-snap movement and most state-of-the-art offenses are using pre-snap shifts and motions (the Chiefs love to utilize it as well). So where do the Raiders fall in line in terms of pre-snap movement?
Not particularly high, actually.
The Raiders only used pre-snap shifts and motions on 41 percent of plays this year, which was good for 19th-best in the league. In other words, 18 teams utilized pre-snap movement more than the Raiders.
Not saying that means much… but not saying it doesn’t, either.
It would be interesting to know if Jon Gruden would like to see more pre-snap motions next season or feels good about being around the league average. Maybe that’s a question that will be asked of him sometime before next year.
twitter: @raidersbeat
