“Shallow Trail” is a great play design for short yardage and red-zone situations.
The route concept includes a shallow crosser, which generally removes defenders or takes their attention away from an area, and then an angle route behind it into the vacated space.
It’s effective against man or zone and can be run with the main route combo coming from a number of different areas of the formation. It can also be the primary target of a route concept or the back side of a progression.
Probably the most common version is shown below with the angle route coming from the running back out of the backfield (the route combo is highlighted in red):
This was a game from the 2023 season between the 49ers and Cardinals. On this play, Arizona was in man coverage with two defenders ready to take running back Christian McCaffrey depending on which direction he released. They also had an extra defender in the middle to help out on any in-breaking routes:
So conceivably, the Cardinals had 3 defenders in the middle of the field ready to account for McCaffrey anywhere he released on the field.
But against this route combination, it didn’t matter. George Kittle’s shallow crosser took both his man and the help defender in the middle with him. And that created the opening for McCaffrey’s angle route:
Here’s the play in it’s entirety:
On the play above, McCaffrey’s trail route was toward the end of the progression. On this next play, the objective of the play was to target the shallow-trail.
This time, the trail/angle route would be run by a tight end near the line of scrimmage: