At this point, virtually everything in the NFL is borrowed. There aren’t a lot of “new” ideas out there. Either something is just lifted from someone else’s playbook or a team combines a couple of ideas into a new blend. There’s nothing wrong with any of that.
And when you’re the Pittsburgh Steelers struggling to find offensive traction, especially on the ground, you look to what’s working around the league. The successful run games and what they’re doing well. That’s what the Steelers have done with the “Zorro” toss, borrowed from the Kyle Shanahan playbook and a play that’s branched out to Mike McDaniel and the Miami Dolphins.
Let’s walk through what “Zorro” means, what it looks like around the league, and how it applies to the Steelers.
In essence, Zorro is a toss play with fast motion by a fullback across the formation ahead of and on the snap of the football. Basically, the lead blocker gets a running start. As outlined below by the very smart @SyedSchemes, here are the coaching points. A way for a tight end to block a wide-9 defender with some help from the lead block.
Let’s see it in action. Here, you can see 49ers FB Kyle Juszczyk jet across the formation. He helps double the right defensive end initially, giving the tight end inside help, before moving to the second level. It helps that the cornerback slips and that the back has a big lane to turn upfield for a huge gain.
Finally, let’s bring it to Pittsburgh. The Steelers ran it at least twice in their Week Five win over the Baltimore Ravens both times with TE Connor Heyward serving as the lead blocker. It’s a toss to the boundary/closed side with TE Darnell Washington kicking out the right outside linebacker. WR Allen Robinson II cracks down on the play side linebacker while Heyward jets across and helps Washington secure inside leverage on the right outside linebacker before working to the cornerback/contain defender.
Robinson loses the block, the safety flies down, and Heyward isn’t able to cleanly kick out/box out the corner. Still, Harris has a bit of a lane and turns the corner to get about four yards here. Here’s the entire play.
Here, they run it again with RB Jaylen Warren. Same blocking scheme. Robinson has a better angle on the crack block on the linebacker while Heyward can more immediately flow to the cornerback with the right outside linebacker staying outside and not trying to spike down. There just isn’t a great overall push from Washington, LT Broderick Jones and Robinson have a tough assignment here on a linebacker.
This run only goes for a few yards, Warren churning ahead to get what he can get.
This play call hasn’t had a ton of success but it’s something the team might sprinkle in against the right (and hopefully better) fronts going forward. And you can at least see the Steelers try to adjust and add some things midseason to see if they can jump-start a run game that desperately needs a spark.
