Zone Blocking vs Man Blocking

Zone and man blocking schemes both have their advantages and disadvantages. For instance, zone blocking is great for picking up blitzes, making blocking adjustments, and tracking linebackers. The primary intentions are to stop penetration, create movement, work in tandem with linemen, and seal off the onside linemen. Utilizing man blocking reduces opportunity for miscommunication and decreases time that running back spends behind the line of scrimmage. The purpose is to provide a predetermined hole for the running back to pursue. This approach may fit well with an unexperienced running back with lack of strategical vision. Man blocking mostly requires power and explosion.


When working with more experienced athletes zone blocking can result in very unpredictable offensive plays that are hard for the defense to follow. It also sets up an optimal chance for run-pass option plays. Unfortunately, man blocking limits the variability. Because each of these methods reflect advantages and disadvantages, an offensive philosophy should consist of both.


Mara

I believe it is very beneficial to have the ability to use both zone blocking and man blocking schemes into your system. With that being said, I will lean more towards the zone blocking system because of the simple fact that it can be much easier to teach. Being at the Junior College level, the transition of players in and out of programs can vary from 6 months to 3 years. So, it's imperative to make the blocking scheme teachable in a short period of time. Yes, I understand that both schemes are teachable in a variety of ways, but within our offensive scheme the zone blocking is most beneficial to us.


We've been a big inside zone, outside zone team, with some zone read and RPO heavy over the last 6 years and the ability to teach the zone concepts have been much easier for our staff. As we know as well, within the zone concepts, communication amongst the OL is huge with knowing the direction and combo blocks that will be taking place. With this action, it has now made things much easier for our QB's and RBs to understand blocking schemes and the ability to anticipate and read blocks.


Finally, I am not against the man blocking scheme because we have been successful as well running a pin pull concept with the G scheme and counter as well. But with what we do within our offensive scheme, the zone blocking concept is much more beneficial for us to successful.


Christopher

When it comes to the man & zone-blocking schemes, I believe they are both great, depending on the strength and weaknesses of your team. I had the opportunity to play on a team’s that utilized a heavy man-blocking scheme and a heavy zone-blocking scheme. In college, under one offensive coordinator, we ran the man-blocking scheme, and it was great but dull and one-dimensional at times. It worked well for us that year because we had two backs that were 225 plus pounds, and we had a solid offensive line that loved to play smash-mouth football and enjoyed blowing people off the ball. There were times when we ran into problems because the defense was blitzing and making pre-snap reads which led them to overload the gap and shut down the play. The man-blocking scheme also left us in shambles when we tried to run RPOs because the lineman was firing to the second level on run plays. In this case, I believe if you have a team that is more suited for power, and you want your lineman and running backs to do less thinking and play smash-mouth football, I feel like the man-blocking scheme would be the best choice.



Regarding zone blocking, I believe you can be more versatile with some power and finesse. While playing on a team that utilized zone blocking, I realized that you had to communicate much more than what you would have to do on a man-blocking scheme, and you had to have some patience as a back and let the play develop. You also had room for RPOs that could be thrown beyond the line of scrimmage. While running the zone blocking scheme, you can use combo blocks to help take care of defensive fronts that like to shift or move during pre-snap. Some cons I have noticed about the zone blocking scheme are that it allows for more busted plays because so many blocking assignments are decided on the fly. More assignments get missed allowing penetration to happen more frequently.



I would incorporate 95% of the zone-blocking scheme into my offense while utilizing 5% of the man-blocking scheme. I choose to use most of the zone blocking scheme because I like to allow my lineman to communicate based on what they see up front to execute the block successfully. I also would use the zone blocking scheme more often because I feel like I can be more versatile in what I want to do, and I can also run the zone read option, which will allow my Quarterback or my running back to run or we could even turn that into an RPO. The 5% of man blocking scheme would be utilized to throw off the defense or in short-yardage situations.

Ultimately, I believe you must do what works best for you and your team!



Robert

This is such a hard topic to think about because I think the benefits of man and zone blocking schemes are there for both. In my personal opinion I think it is good to have a mixture of both schemes in an offense because personnel can change within an offense.


I think man blocking schemes are great because linemen know exactly where they are going, and who they have to block. The main goal is to turn the defender away from the running lane. It also pre-determines the hole that we want our running back to hit. For example 22 iso is for the 2 back to go straight the 2 whole. If the offensive sticks to their responsibilities with the man blocking scheme it should eliminate negative plays.


In my personal opinion I lean more toward the zone scheme. I think it opens offenses up. Zone schemes tend to open up more lanes for cutbacks, and allow our athletes to be more versatile. We run a double wing style offense in the program I am in, and we try to pound teams on the ground. One thing with our offense is that we run a lot of zone scheme, which allows for more pulls, and kick outs at the line of scrimmage. It also seems to open the vision up for our running back to take advantage of defensive players over running. I just believe zone gets the defense going more side to side. It also opens up the opportunity for RPO's because the offensive line spends more time behind the line of scrimmage than they would if it was a man blocking scheme where the line would be flying off of the ball forward to attack their man. It opens up the ability for the quarterback to use decision making skills, and get the ball into the hands of another play maker out in the flats.


Austin

man blocking of your ability to block in general (pass, run). man running are north south iso, hd draws, qb scramble up the middle. Power(power blocking) run are east to west gap runs by point of attack by offensive line need a acceleration, strength, speed to be effective.