FILM ROOM: Tyler's Play of the Week - NFL Week 6, 2024

By Tyler Arthur

Welcome to the first instalment of my Play of the Week series. I am going to deep dive one snap from every week of the NFL season, to try and bring you an inside look at what happened on my favourite play of that weekend’s games.

There is no set formula for what would make a play the best; it could be fascinating from an X’s and O’s perspective, it could be an exceptional piece of play design or just amazing execution from an individual player.

The one thing that every play will have in common, however – it will be awesome.

Let’s take a look at my Play of the Week for Week 6 of the 2024 NFL season.

Sam LaPorta 52-yard Receiving Touchdown - Detroit Lions @ Dallas Cowboys

This week we’re doing something a little different… Trading our traditional X’s and O’s for something a bit more creative.

On Primetime with the whole world watching, the Detroit Lions absolutely embarrassed the Dallas Cowboys. With a final scoreline of 47-9, America’s team were destroyed by the Lions, who have become one of the most entertaining teams in the league. However, not only did Dan Campbell and his boys in blue entertain the way they always do – with fantastic players and explosive plays – they also had a few tricks up their sleeve, just to make sure their opponents didn’t get the wrong impression that they were taking them seriously.

Compared to some of the other shenanigans that the visiting team pulled in this game, my personal favourite moment being when they lined up Dan Skipper (the offensive tackle that the referees controversially said didn’t report as eligible when Detroit lost against Dallas last season) at wide receiver – a flea flicker is tame.

The Lions were running trick plays, putting offensive tackles in at Z, and they even threw a ‘Hook and Ladder’ to RT Penei Sewell… And they decided to go for something a bit more traditional… A HB dive? Nope. A reverse flea flicker of course!

All jokes aside, it was a beautifully executed play, which combined the sheer chaos caused by so much backfield action with some great acting from Sam LaPorta to result in a beautiful 50-yard TD.

Pre-Snap Look

The Detroit Lions absolutely love to run the damn football. This should be no surprise to you if you’re an NFL fan. Since introducing the ex-Cowboy Campbell at head coach, they’ve been a smashmouth run-first football team which just happens to also have a fantastic passing attack. This run-first mentality is further cemented into the gameplan of any defense they face by the two-pronged attack they have in the form of the best backfield duo in football.

David Montgomery and Jahmy Gibbs have two different skillsets, but they have a key thing in common, they’re very good.

So, what I’m trying to say is, when Detroit break a huddle and come out in this formation, the defense can’t be faulted for getting at least a little bit worried they’re going to run the ball.

The offense is lined up in a very run-heavy Jumbo formation, which has star wide receiver set up in a ‘Nasty’ alignment (a tight alignment just a few yards outside the widest lineman or tight end). On the other side, deep threat wideout Tim Patrick is lined up in the more traditional slot alignment.

David Montgomery is the solo running back lined up six yards behind Goff under center, with a practically symmetrical 7-man line, the only asymmetry coming from Brock Wright’s three point TE stance to the defensive right and Sam LaPorta’s preferred two-point stance.

Seeing this, the Defense is lined up in a very aggressive, very shallow defensive formation.

Dallas are in 4-3, but with linebacker Marist Liufau walked down to play the 7-technique, which from a run-fit standpoint is more like a 5-2 (or ‘Bear’) front. With techniques lined up in 7-3-1-4i-7 techniques, and two middle linebackers poised to head downfield, the Cowboys are ready to fill every running lane and stuff this jumbo set run. There’s one single-high free safety surveying the field, and everybody else is five yards off the line of scrimmage, with eyes in the backfield.

Unfortunately, having eyes in the backfield prior to this play wasn’t going to help anyone.

The X's & O's

This is my first time drawing the play art for a flea flicker so do forgive me, but I’ve done my best to try and visually demonstrate this beautiful chaos.

Prior to the snap, Amon-Ra St. Brown runs a Jet motion, and then once they snap it, he turns around and runs a sweeping return toward where he came from. As this happens, Jared Goff runs an inside toss to David Montgomery, pulling all Dallas’ linebackers forward, and making it look like a run play.

At this point the defense is half worried about a left-side run for David Montgomery and half worried about the reverse for St. Brown who would come back the long way to the defensive right side.

Plus, as an added bonus – ignoring the fact that it is very evident that Dallas were expecting a run and reacted as such for the first second or two of the play – Dallas’ defensive play call was one which made it even more difficult to prepare for what came next, when Goff gets the ball back and LaPorta turns his run-blocking into a delayed wheel route, which will send him down the sideline outside a deep Tim Patrick to occupy his man and the free safety.

Dallas came out in a Cover 1 man call (which you may realise based on my explanation above is not ideal), opting to trade a robber for the extra rusher/first-level run defender. This put them under a lot of pressure, once the Lions start running around and doing weird things in the backfield.

This is the play art for their defensive call when the Lions lined up offensively. This is a standard Cover 1 set up with each of the defensive backs responsible for the man directly in front of them. In this Jumbo set, there’s an extra tight end so there’s a linebacker on the run-blocking TE and a safety on the receiving TE. This is a completely reasonable set up, and the Boys defense is in a decent position at first.

But then, Amon-Ra St. Brown runs his motion, and everything starts to crumble.

As you can see, when the jet motion happens, all of the defenders start to reposition, as they exchange responsibilities. This puts Trevon Diggs in no-mans-land, just waiting to see if someone runs towards him, and shifts everybody else down one assignment, as they move across the field.

At the point where Goff actually gets the ball from under centre, the assignments have completely changed. St. Brown is no longer the responsibility of Diggs, now that task falls onto the shoulders of safety Malik Hooker, who – as you can see at the moment of this screenshot – overpursues the motion.

The two linebackers shift their responsibilities and physically start to rotate, with Diggs keeping one eye on Brock Wright, Damon Clarke (the right side MLB) shifts his focus to David Montgomery and DeMarvion Overshown (the left MLB) moves out to man up on Sam LaPorta.

This would be an uncomfortable matchup in any situation (don’t forget, they’d specifically chosen to put a safety on LaPorta and not a linebacker, prior to the motion), but now LaPorta’s acting skills come into play.

As you watch this play, try and focus on the two pivotal players of this play, Overshown and LaPorta.

Execution

While the backfield chaos of the flea flicker is developing, LaPorta is blocking. He has a double team on the defensive end, which he holds for just long enough before leaving to Penei Sewell that Overshown ends up with his eyes in the backfield. In fact, if you watch closely, the timing is literally perfect.

At the precise moment that Overshown sits down and focuses his attention on the backfield (and therefore not his man), LaPorta releases on his delayed wheel route and he’s open down the sideline.

Goff has a clean pocket (which is even cleaner thanks to a very satisfying spin move from the Centre which didn’t go unnoticed) and makes the routine throw with ease.

Just two routes was all it took to throw a touchdown from the halfway line. That’s the power of well-executed trickery.

Tim Patrick takes the top off the defense and occupies the single-high safety and LaPorta’s acting, while perhaps not quite Oscar worthy, did enough to spring him for this epic 52-yard TD and was certainly worthy of my Play of the Week.

Tyler discovered American Football when he went to university and became obsessed with it. Since then he has played, watched and written about it, while on a mission to attain as much knowledge (and win as many fantasy football championships) as possible.

He currently plays Wide Receiver for the Northants Knights.

Tyler loves nothing more than watching the All-22 to break down the film and teach people about the sport he loves.