Back in the day, the NFL preseason gave you about as many schematic clues regarding what teams would do in the regular season as the Pro Bowl would — when there actually was a Pro Bowl game.
Which is to say, not much at all.
With more exhibition games than there are now (six from 1970-1977, four from 1978-2020, and three from 2021-the present as the regular season has expanded from 14 to 16 to 17 games), coaches used to have the relative luxury of just throwing their players out there and seeing how they would execute rudimentary game plans, with much more time to course correct.
These days, you need to hit the ground running. Teams do engage in joint practices against other teams during training camp, but that’s not full-go and full contact. With just those three preseason games to figure out where everything is, the NFL is no longer a league in which coaches can ramp up to any kind of schematic skullduggery.
So, if you hear analysts insist that “teams don’t show you anything in the preseason,” and that’s still a common refrain, know that it’s not true at all. In the 2026 preseason, for example, NFL teams didn’t just show far more advanced concepts than you might expect; they did so at rates that approximated what you saw in the 2025 regular and postseason, and what you might see as the regular season is about to get underway. And in some cases, they actually upped the frequency of those concepts, likely to get all the players in line with the fanciest pages in the playbook.
Now, the only thing that’s different about the preseason is that a bunch of players are playing who were not going to be on NFL rosters once final cuts happened. Other than that? It’s very much like for like.
Let’s get into the data, courtesy of Sumer Sports and Pro Football Focus.
Pre-snap motion
Pre-snap motion has become one of the NFL’s ultimate cheat codes, especially in the passing game, and you saw a lot more of it in the preseason than you might expect. There were 6,400 offensive plays in the 2026 preseason, and offenses used at least one shift or motion in 2,604 plays — 40.7% of the time. That’s lower than the 51.9% motion rate NFL offenses showed in the 2025 season, but not close to the drop-off one might expect.
Three of the four touchdown passes Green Bay Packers quarterback Kyle McCord threw against the Arizona Cardinals in the final week of the preseason had motion elements involved. Though the Packers wound up trading McCord to the Miami Dolphins soon after that happened, head coach Matt LaFleur said postgame that lining up the offensive structure with what it might be like in the regular season was all about seeing how McCord could function as if this was a Week 16 game.
“He did a heck of a job, man,” LaFleur said of McCord. “He was so poised and his ability to operate and function. I think he definitely has the demeanor, no doubt about it. He’s in total control out there, and he’s willing to stand in the pocket, deliver in the face of pressure, and I thought he did an outstanding job.”
That was with offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich calling the plays in the first half of Green Bay’s 42-38 win, and starting quarterback Jordan Love calling plays in the second half. No matter who had the call sheet, the Packers were going to party like it was midseason.
Coverage disguises
Coverage disguises, where defenses flip to a completely different coverage post-snap than they were showing pre-snap, are another concept that has become de rigueur in recent years.
The 2026 preseason didn’t just see an affirmation of this idea — it proved that teams are using it more than ever. MUCH more. In the 2025 regular and postseasons, teams disguised coverage 32% of the time.
In the 2026 preseason, 10 teams disguised their coverages at least 40% of the time, and the Kansas City Chiefs were at the top of the list — defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo had his defensive backs trying to fool opposing quarterbacks 51.5% of the time.
Other teams were not so far behind. The San Francisco 49ers disguised 51.4% of the time, the Detroit Lions did it 49.1%, the Atlanta Falcons were at 45.7%, and the Las Vegas Raiders were at 44.9%.
But Spags, as tends to happen when he grabs onto a concept, led the way. And it worked pretty well for the most part!
“They know the scheme like the back of their hand,” head coach Andy Reid said of Spagnuolo’s concepts in early 2025. “Spags has confidence in them and then the players have confidence in their coaches and Spags. You have to stay focused during the meetings, you have to detail it at practice, you have to detail the walkthroughs that you do meetings on the field. Then, most of all, you have to execute it on game day. But there’s that trust, that whole foundation that you’ve built with the trust and these guys, they’ve got that.
“Then, likewise, I have the confidence in Spags and in certain situations. I don’t run over to him and go, ‘Hey, let’s not do that or this.’ I have enough confidence in him and have been around him long enough to know he’s going to make the right call.”
The Chiefs are going with a very new defensive backfield this season after trading cornerback Trent McDuffie to the Los Angeles Rams, losing cornerback Jaylen Watson to the same Rams in free agency, and losing safety Bryan Cook to the Cincinnati Bengals. No matter who’s in the fold, Spags will coach them up the right way.
And in this case, with the idea that they will eventually be masters of disguise.
Simulated pressures
Simulated pressures, where one defensive player will rush the passer from the second level of the defense as a defensive lineman drops into coverage, have been around for decades, but we’ve seen upticks in frequency and complexity in recent years. Here’s how the percentages break down over the last four seasons:
- 2022: 1,138 of 20,294 dropbacks — 5.6%
- 2023: 1,160 of 20,773 dropbacks — 5.6%
- 2024: 1,470 of 20,191 dropbacks — 7.3%
- 2025: 1,354 of 19,829 dropbacks — 6.8%
Last season, only the Minnesota Vikings (16.0%) and the New Orleans Saints (12.9%) had higher rates of sim pressure plays than Vic Fangio’s Philadelphia Eagles at 11.7%. So it should come as no surprise that Fangio’s Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys, whose new defensive coordinator Christian Parker was Fangio’s defensive backs coach in Denver in 2021, and his passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach in Philly in 2024 and 2025, are at the top of the list in sim pressure rate for the 2026 preseason.
What’s mind-blowing is how much more often the top teams did it in said preseason.
- Philadelphia Eagles – 21/110 (19.1%)
- Dallas Cowboys – 16/89 (18.0%)
- Minnesota Vikings – 14/90 (15.6%)
- New Orleans Saints – 14/111 (12.6%)
- Denver Broncos – 13/113 (11.5%)
Last season, the Cowboys had the NFL’s worst defense by a country mile, and they brought Parker in to update what had been a series of outdated concepts under Matt Eberflus. Sim pressures are just one thing Parker is bringing to Big D that he learned from Fangio. Under Eberflus in 2025, the Cowboys ran sim pressures on just 2.5% of their snaps. Only the Houston Texans (1.5%) did it at a lower rate, but the Texans have the talent to be as vanilla as they want. Last year’s Cowboys were still trying to put it together as the season went along.
“The first thing is, we’re going to be multiple,” Parker said of his overall defensive scheme back in February after he was hired. “I think that whenever you form a defensive structure, it’s about the players that you have. So our core principles, we’ll be a 3-4 by nature, but 4-3 spacing will be appropriate, 4-2-5 in nickel, different front structures, coverages behind it. But I will say being multiple is probably the most important thing about it.”
Get ready for a new D in Big D, folks.
Blitzes
Last season, NFL defenses sent five or more pass-rushers on 26.4% of their pass defense snaps, and that rate has held pretty tight over the last four seasons.
- 2022: 5,317 blitzes on 20,294 dropbacks — 26.2%
- 2023: 5,501 blitzes on 20,773 dropbacks — 26.5%
- 2024: 5,232 blitzes on 20,191 dropbacks — 25.9%
- 2025: 5,242 blitzes on 19,829 dropbacks — 26.4%
Well, if the alleged preseason “vanilla” stuff is supposed to relate to blitzes, how do we reconcile the NFL’s 24.9% blitz rate in the 2026 exhibition campaign? The Detroit Lions, who had a 21.9% blitz rate in the 2025 season, went all-in this preseason, upping their rate to 39.6%, and they were one of eight teams to bring the house at least 30% of the time.
- Detroit Lions – 42/106 – 39.6%
- New York Giants – 29/76 – 38.2%
- Minnesota Vikings – 33/90 – 36.7%
- New York Jets – 40/111 – 36.0%
- Denver Broncos – 40/113 – 35.4%
- Indianapolis Colts – 35/102 – 34.3%
- Los Angeles Chargers – 35/104 – 33.7%
- Jacksonville Jaguars – 35/109 – 32.1%
Last season, the injury-decimated Lions had to blitz less than they wanted to, and play more zone defense than defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard preferred. They’re still injury-decimated in the secondary with Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph dealing with maladies that will have them out for at least the first four games of the season. Add the legal issues that had the team releasing former first-round cornerback Terrion Arnold on June 29, and maybe blitzing is the only way to keep things even for a while.
“I think we’ve adjusted well,” head coach Dan Campbell said last October about the in-season modifications. “I mean, you do what you’ve got to do per opponent and where you’re at, too. So, we felt like going into the last two games where we were at, that was the right thing to do for the most part. But there again, every game’s different, and you always assess and decide how you’re going to play that game. Just because it’s been that way a tick more, doesn’t mean it’s staying that way.”
It looks like the Lions may be tweaking things yet again.
Overall, when looking back at the 2026 preseason, it’s entirely evident that NFL teams weren’t just looking at it as a way to decide who’s executing the game plans properly. It’s become a laboratory for all the league’s mad scientists to see which potions have the desired effects when the games mean the most.
