Every season I have a plan to write more about multiple teams. One of those ideas has always been, “I’ll watch every touchdown scored each week and write about my favorite one.” Time usually conspires against me, but this week? This week I was able to do it. Let’s see if we can carry this forward.
The Bills ran a concept commonly known as Mesh Traffic against the Dolphins on Thursday night. Those of you who know me know of my deep love for Mesh. It’s a powerful concept with a ton of great variations.
Image taken from the University of Kentucky Wildcats 1997 playbook
Along with a couple other concepts (Four Verts and Y Cross), Mesh is one of the foundational concepts in the vaunted Air Raid offense. The main action to look for are the two dueling shallow crossers in the middle of the field. Most of the other routes are up for grabs when you’re looking at Mesh versions, but those routes - or the threat of those routes - are what make Mesh go.
Mesh has always been a concept that seems to thrive by causing a bit of chaos. Mesh traffic takes that and levels it up.
The Bills are running a version of Mesh that I typically call Mesh Sit. You get the two-crossers in the middle of the field, and a third receiver who follows that motion to the middle and sits over the mesh point. The idea is that the crossers can cause some confusion with coverage assignments, which will sometimes cause a void in coverage over the mesh point. So they just send a receiver to sit in that void.
There’s a lot of pre-snap motion here. James Cook [4] starts on Josh Allen’s [17] left, then quickly motions behind Allen as if he’s going to run to the flat. The Dolphins respond by bumping David Long [11] over Cook.
They then motion Curtis Samuel [1] in front of Allen, then orbiting behind him. That shows Jalen Ramsey [5] following Samuel. With those motions, it looks like the Dolphins are in man coverage, which would put Long on Cook. Which is exactly what the Bills want.
At the snap, Samuel releases out to the right flat, while Khalil Shakir [10] and Mack Hollins [13] release from the left into their in-cutting Mesh routes.
All of that puts a wall up between Long and the left side. Causing some “traffic”, one might say. Cook simply releases to the left flat and finds an ocean of space.
A lovely concept, executed perfectly with the help of some pre-snap tells.
Album listened to: Leem of Earth - Leem of Earth