Taking a play from the AFC Championship game and giving it to the Packers
Since the Packers season ended in the Wild Card Round, we’ve been watching the other games in the playoffs and trying to find cool things to steal and give to the Packers offense. A couple of weeks ago, we stole at a pitch/shovel play from the Lions. Last week we stole a couple RPOs from the Chiefs. Today, we’re stealing a Mesh concept from the Bills and their offensive coordinator Joe Brady. But not just any Mesh concept. No, we’re stealing Mesh Double Rail.
Mesh is a concept that the Packers leaned hard into early in the LaFleur era. In Bobby Peters’ 2020 Green Bay Packers Complete Offensive Manual (which you should absolutely pick up), Peters said “the Packers are the best Mesh team in the NFL. They run more variations than any other team I have studied.” And they were good at it, too. Per Peters, they averaged 8.4 YPA when running Mesh in 2020.
That came crashing back down to earth in the playoffs. And, while they still leaned heavily into it in 2021, they had trouble recapturing the magic (4.9 YPA running Mesh in 2021). After that, they just kind of stopped running it (after running it nearly 30 times per season in 2020 & 2021, I’ve got them at around 10 instances in both 2023 and 2024).
I’ll have a bigger piece this offseason about Mesh and how the Packers can build it back into their attack, but, for now, we’re just stealing this one play. Because Mesh is making a comeback around the league and I want this variation in the Packers playbook as soon as possible.
There are a thousand different variations of Mesh, but it all revolves around two short drag routes crossing each other in the middle of the field. While the concept itself is commonly traced back to LaVell Edwards at BYU, the concept was brought to prominence through the Air Raid system developed by Hal Mumme and Mike Leach. (S.C. Gwynne has a terrific book on the history of the Air Raid called The Perfect Pass, with a large section devoted to Mumme & Leach perfecting Mesh in their system.)
A common variation is something called Mesh Rail. You get the crossing routes in the middle of the field, combined with a Rail route (vertical route from the backfield). It’s something we’ve seen from the Packers. The Bills saw that and thought, “What if we had two Rail routes?”
The Bills are facing 3rd & 3 at their own 37-yard line, down 7-0 with 7:30 remaining in the 1st quarter. They come out in 21 personnel (2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR), with the wide receivers in tight splits. The Chiefs have a lot of bodies up at the line.
The Bills have their two wide receivers running the dueling drag routes, with their tight end (Dawson Knox [88]) running a Sit route over the crossing point in the middle of the field. That route works as a way to create a little more traffic for Khalil Shakir [10] to work under on his route.
They have a split backfield, with Ty Johnson [26] aligned to Josh Allen’s right and James Cook [4] shifting down to Allen’s left.
At the snap, Cook and Johnson release vertically on their Rail routes, while all the Mesh action happens in the middle. Allen is initially looking for Cook on the left, but the Chiefs fall back into coverage on that side, taking that away. So he simply works back underneath to Shakir on the crosser, who has room under Knox. Allen gets the ball to Shakir, who picks up 12 yards and the 1st down.
I love this. It stresses the defense both vertically and horizontally while giving your quarterback options.
With the Packers personnel, here’s how I’d like to run it:
On the drag routes, we’ve got Romeo Doubs [87] and Jayden Reed [11]. With Doubs pushing his route a little deeper and Tucker Kraft [85] aligned on his side, we’re looking to spring Reed on the drag route in that portion.
On the Rail routes, we’ve got Josh Jacobs [8] and MarShawn Lloyd [32] out of the backfield. I know I know, Lloyd barely saw the field in 2024, but I’m banking on a healthier 2025 and I want speed on that route to really threaten the defense.
Since the Rails are mirrored, the QB is really only looking at one of those post-snap depending on the defensive alignment. So he’ll pick a side pre-snap and if he still likes that look post-snap, he’ll throw the Rail to the determined side. If it’s not there, he’ll work back to the middle of the field to read the coverage and determine which of the crossers to throw to. If the defense has parted in the middle, he’ll throw the Sit to Kraft.
As I said earlier, we’ll be doing a deeper dive into the world of Mesh this offseason (I’ve got a folder full of Mesh variations from around the league in 2024), but this is the first one I’m slamming on the desk.
Albums listened to: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven; Moose – …xyz; Drop Nineteens – Delaware