The San Francisco 49ers' offense has a staple that overshadows everything else it does.

That is motion. No offense in the NFL does a better job of having success when using motion.

In the 2023 regular season, the 49ers had a positive play rate of 54.7% on pass attempts where motion was utilized. That was first in the NFL. Their EPA on those throws was a whopping 75.01, the best in the NFL by massive margin ahead of the Miami Dolphins (54.78) in second, per Sports Info Solutions.

San Francisco had 397 rush attempts where motion was involved, the most in the NFL and led the league in positive play rate (48.4%) and EPA (16.59) on those runs.

But motion is not necessarily a clear cut path to offensive success in Super Bowl 58, with the Niners set to face a Kansas City Chiefs defense that does an excellent job defending against it. 

George Kittle explained why it might not be so easy against the Chiefs this week when asked about the challenge posed by an extremely talented Kansas City secondary.

“They run very unique coverages that not a lot of other teams run. And then there are four guys plus their linebackers. If you watch the tape, one thing that they're doing at a very high level is communicating,” Kittle said.

“And so we're a team that we have guys in motion, and then they'll run back the other way. There's all these motions and try to get guys that they have to bump gaps with all those motions and run fits and stuff like that. And they just do such a good job of communicating, they never get missed, like they always are in the right place the right time, no matter how many motions you do, and they know exactly how to run their defense.

“And that's one of the most impressive things because I think our team our offense is very difficult to run against if you're not used to something like that. And like you see that for a lot of like a lot of our big plays our one guy took the wrong step because one of the motions were able to dig that guy out instead of him hitting the C gap and then oh oh here's Christian McCaffrey, one on one versus a safety and so like, they do a very good job of communicating. I think that's gonna be one of the biggest difficulties for us.”

The Chiefs ranked fifth in EPA defending throws on plays that used motion, illustrating Kittle's point.

They figure to be more vulnerable to runs on plays that use motion, however, with Kansas City still in the top half of the league defending such attempts in EPA per attempt, but only in 14th position in that regard.

Kansas City's success defending motion reflects the fact this is a true strength on strength matchup when the 49ers have the ball, and the onus is firmly on head coach Kyle Shanahan and his players to ensure the trick with which they had the most joy this season works its magic even against an opponent much less likely to take the bait.

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