When do you teach your OL to come off the block? What is your goal for them?

on the zone, we try to deliver the down lineman into the lb's lap. Both of the blockers eyes are on the lb so if he shoots inside, the inside ol will come off to him and if he scrapes over the top, we are looking for movement on the down line man

Troy,

If you are talking straight zone blocking, I think a main coaching point is to instill in your OL is that "we do not chase LB's!" ISZ we want to drive them with a double team straight into the LB's laps with the OL closest to the scraping LB coming off at the last second to handle him.

If your talking veer blocking for example, I always teach the combo blockers must read the LB's in the PSL and know which OL on the combo is going to slam and slide to the LB and which one is going to maintain the block on the DL.

In my terminology, there is a difference in a COMBO BLOCK and a DOUBLE TEAM BLOCK. These terms are often used by coaches to mean the same thing and in my terminology they are not the same but two entirely different blocks.

COMBO BLOCK = 2 OLS attacking a DL with the intent of one OL hitting high up on the DL and sliding to the
2nd level (LB) while the other hits the DL in the rib area and maintains the block.

DOUBLE TEAM BLOCK = 2 OL getting hip to hip and drive blocking the DL straight backward until the whistle blows!

Coach Easton

Another good question is what is finishing the block mean to you? My college coach thought finishing the block was getting your body inbetween the defender and the running back. My HS coach thought that finishing the block was a crush or pancake block.

I agree with Coach Mountjoy on the definition. To me, finishing is when the defender absolutely cannot get in on the tackle whether that is by being pancaked or by simply driven out of position. As nice as a pancake feels and looks, I find it more impressive when a lineman drives a defender straight out of the play 10 plus yards.

wolverine55,
But when your blocking a guy when do you know when he cant make the tackle. I dont teach my guys to look back for the ball carrier.

finishing the block means staying with your DL until the whistle blows, i've seen too many times, both from the sideline and firsthand, where a linemen thinks he's finished a block, releases before the whistle blows and his DL ends up 15 yards down field making the tackle while the back was trying to make a move on another defender. It is important to teach linemen to not let go of a block until the whistle blows because until then, you never really know if your DL can still make the tackle. as far as when to release, it's a read that has to be made by linemen executing the block, they have to know who's going to peel off and pick up the linebacker and whose going to finish the block on the DL. the only way to do this of course is to rep it.

There are several styles of blocking schemes based upon a man rule or a zone philosophy. With must zone blocking schemes a combo will track linebackers and only come off the combo once the linebacker reaches the same level as the combo or blocker his side. This is a good topic. Coach Campbell

I guess the answer is you dont come off the block. Who posted this STUPID question, anyway?

Bill,

That is a solid idea! We film and review together and point out what we see as a team, but to record in that manner and maintain a written record is a really smart idea! How long have you done that?

Coach Easton

Tiger 1 - I got that idea roughly 15-16 years ago. Since we have the defensive scouting team only wrap up (& not take them to the ground) when we scrimmage TEAM OFFENSE - we can go with a slightly slower whistle. When we blow the whistle - we check the 3 defenders nearest the ball carrier!

We have enough misdirection (Power (same step for RB as Counter); Counter; H-Around) in our 5-6 BASE runs that the defense must play honest!

Once our blockers realize that they are being held accountable for THEIR MEN in scrimmage - they fight their butts off to prevent them from being able to wrap up or tag off on BC! This ALSO keepds POSITION COACHES on their toes also - they don't want THEIR men to screw up the play!