After several hours of film study it is very clear that New Cleveland Browns’ head coach HueJackson wants to get the ball into his playmakers’ hands. The former Bengals’ offensive coordinator does an outstanding job identifying and exploiting personnel mismatches using formation and alignment to isolate and deliver the ball to his skill-position players in space. As a long-time play caller, the well-respected coach has a variety of pass concepts in his toolbox to put his star receivers in position to make plays. A noteworthy play that shows up on tape is the Air Raid-classic ‘Mesh’.
‘Mesh’ is a flexible concept that works well against both man and zone coverages. The play gets its name from two shallow routes that come from opposite sides of the formation, crossing in the middle of the field to screen (think a pick in basketball) chasing defenders. The crossers should pass close enough to slap hands in order to maximize the chance a defender is picked. To the outside coaches will run a variety of vertical routes with the including posts, seams, deep digs, or fades. The tailback generally runs a flat or wheel route to widen the linebackers, creating throwing windows for the shallow.
As you can see from the image above (taking from Bob Stoops’ 1999 Oklahoma playbook), the concept features a clear progression read with option routes to be converted against zone coverage. The quarterback will generally read the progression against man coverage by ‘peeking’ at the vertical route, then moving from the same-side shallow to the back-side-shallow. Good coaches will look for opportunities to specifically target, or ‘tag’, the wheel route if a linebacker takes the tailback in coverage.
The crossing routes require both the quarterback and receivers to read man or zone coverage. Against man the receivers will run across the field at full-speed, flaring upfield between the hash mark and numbers. Against zone coverage the receivers will throttle down in the first hole they see after executing the mesh. To execute the route combo against zone the quarterback and receivers must both read the coverage and anticipate the holes created within the distorted defense correctly.
Let’s look at an example of Jackson’s version of the Mesh from the 2015 season.
Because the quarterback Andy Dalton wants to target the routes to the left-side of the field, Green is brought from the opposite side of the formation. The Pro Bowler is aligned in a ‘nasty’ split (tight to the core formation) in order to cut down the distance he must cover on his crossing route.
It’s impossible to know the exact progression without seeing the playbook, but the concept is likely read:
- Peek the wheel route,
- Moves to the vertical route in the seam
- Comes down to the shallow.
Focus on the mesh by the tight end and Green near the right hash at the 20-yard line. Although Green does not sit the route down facing zone coverage, the tailback wheel widens the underneath defender while the Z receiver (located on the left of the formation) clears out the seam/hook, creating a large void in which Green makes the catch and presses upfield for an extra 12 yards of YAC.
Although Jackson is associated with a ground-and-pound run game and its companion vertical pass-game, teams cannot sleep on his short and intermediate concepts.