According to Philbin, the play is designed to give Rodgers the option of simply taking the shotgun snap and trying to throw for the touchdown or, if he sees a favorable alignment up front from the defense, moving under center and keeping the ball on the sneak. He chose the latter.
Its a built-in thing. He sees a soft spot in the defense and takes it, Philbin said. It was a good decision. It looked like (the Dolphins) had miscommunicated once before, so they were scrambling around and he saw an opening there, saw a soft spot in the defense. It was a good play.
They called timeout right before that and we were in the same formation. The line said, Hey, if they line up with nobody over center again, let's just sneak it.' So we talked about it real quick, Rodgers said. They actually lined up with a guy over the center, but the next guy out was, I think, outside the tackle on the left side. So I just told them I was going to act like I was changing something and then just went up there and quick-snapped it and got it in there."