Use Of Extended Hands and Arms

In 1976, a rule change was made to allow the use of hands and arms to leave the parallel position while blocking. Arms might then extend one?half of a fall arm extension while pass blocking as long as hands stayed inside the framework of the body. When offensive men run blocks, arms must still remain parallel to the ground.

As of 1980, offensive linemen might use full extension of their arms while pass blocking as long as they block behind the neutral zone. The retreat block was added to facilitate full extension while pass blocking, which means the offensive lineman must be moving backwards away from the line of scrimmage while blocking with extended arms.

In 1985, the retreat block was deleted and open hands and extended arms permitted anywhere on the field. This new rule change allowed offensive linemen to both pass and ran block with extended arms.

While pass blocking, the change to full extension of arms has allowed linemen to pass block on the line of scrimmage and aggressively run block opponents.

In was during this time that coaches started to incorporate and introduce new techniques and drills to facilitate this new rule change. Since most coaches tend to coach what they already felt comfortable with, blocking with extended arms and hands took a slow change over which coaches today do not fully understand.