There is a cat-and-mouse game that exists between offenses and defenses. Offenses want to find ways to force the defense to tip its hand on what coverage they’ll be playing before the snap. Defenses want to disguise their intentions.
One way offenses will try to uncover a defensive “tell” is by using motion. If a defender follows (and especially if he doesn’t appear to be communicating with the rest of the defense as he does), it likely means they are playing man coverage.
That’s a valuable piece of information for the quarterback, who can get the offense into the right play at the line or pick the best route/matchup.
So how can the defense use this tendency or “tell” to their advantage? Well, by breaking tendency and playing zone despite showing that initial man-coverage look.
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You could see a great example of this in last season’s Week 16 matchup between the Rams and Seahawks.
Watch the Rams present a man-coverage look initially with their defensive backs squared up on Seattle’s receivers in press position. On top of that, cornerback Josh Wallace followed Cooper Kupp across the formation pre-snap:
From quarterback Sam Darnold’s perspective, this was man coverage.
Seattle had double-slants called to the left to attack it: