“Mesh Rail” is a great variation of Mesh and a common concept used across the NFL.
The key difference between Mesh Rail and Mesh is that the first read is a rail route from the backfield instead of some other route from a receiver on the outside.
Below, you can see the design of the play with the quarterback’s reads:
The hope is to get the ball to the rail route coming out of the backfield. The offense will often get a favorable matchup with the running back on a linebacker who has to fight through traffic.
And there are generally several moments in the play when the rail route can be thrown. The quarterback can throw it immediately if it’s a hot situation or if the defender has to go over top of the traffic (depending on down and distance).
He can throw it to the back shoulder a little later in the route if he feels comfortable with the matchup and the defender has his back turned to the quarterback.
Or he can throw it over the top if the defender tries to go under the traffic and ends up chasing the receiver.
Despite having multiple options, you generally see quarterbacks forego the rail route and hit the shallow crosser from the mesh combo.
Let’s take a look at some examples below.
This first one was a 4th-and-2 for the Commanders against the Lions in the 2024 Divisional Playoffs. The Commanders led 38-28 with just 8-and-a-half minutes remaining. Convert here and the game was all but over.
The Mesh Rail design shown above was the play called here:
The Lions would play cover-0 (no deep safety) with a low-hole defender as help inside (cover-0 “funnel”) and rush 5:
The extra route in this concept is generally some kind of “alert” route. Here, it was a corner/out by Jamison Crowder. That will come into play in a bit:
Quarterback Jayden Daniels’ first read was the rail route. At the snap, however, it was clear to him that this wouldn’t be open since linebacker Alex Anzalone was able to get over top of the route and had his eyes on the quarterback. He was in great position to respond to any kind of throw to the back:
The #2 read was Terry McLaurin’s shallow crosser as a part of the mesh concept. Here’s where that alert route comes into play. Notice how it created traffic that the defender responsible for McLaurin couldn’t fight through:
Had he been able to stick with McLaurin, there was another pick/rub coming his way in the form of Zach Ertz’ crossing route from the other side:
Here, Ertz was able to prevent the low-hole defender from taking McLaurin, although he likely wouldn’t have been able to hang anyway.
Daniels quickly sorted everything out, eliminated the rail route, and got the ball to McLaurin on the shallow crosser for 12 yards and a first down:
The Commanders would put the game away with a touchdown on the next play.
Mesh Rail also made an appearance in the AFC Championship Game a week later, resulting in a 23-yard gain that set up the Chiefs’ game-winning field goal: