Why zone blocking

Cook, of course, won't be on the field to catch screen passes or pressure the edge of the Packers' run defense on Monday night. His backup, Alexander Mattison, is dealing with an ankle injury that forced him out of the Vikings' game last week against the Los Angeles Chargers and is questionable to suit up. The Vikings' running game could be in the hands of Mike Boone , an undrafted free agent with 32 career carries, and veteran kick returner Ameer Abdullah during a key part of their playoff run.

In many ways, this game will deliver an enduring update of the zone scheme. The Broncos famously fielded six 1,yard rushers during Mike Shanahan's time in Denver. Can a good zone-blocking team subsist without its top runner? Monday night is the test. Skip to main content Skip to navigation. The secret to the NFL's best rushing teams: Why zone blocking is here to stay.

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It doesn't matter the quality of the product itself; it just matters that it's saleable. It's disappointing, especially because I know many commenters on this forum go out and do some research to back up claims that take a mere paragraph to describe.

So how does a reporter pass up this basic, easily discoverable research when you and I would do it for a simple, anonymous comment on a website? Maybe it's because the environment in which he or she writes encourages that behavior That's still odd, though, given that one of the the authors in question works for a company that's been publishing for decades.

Hell, Dr. Maybe the book is simply a product of the Internet Age, where content so often comes before quality. Of course it's much harder to update a physical book after it's been published.

At least if it's online, a deluge of snarky posts can trigger subsequent updates and releases. The C. Mushroom Society? Both are kept in the dark and fed garbage yet continue to flourish!

Coaches of Offensive Linemen are proud to be mushrooms. Is it "zone blocking" on a trap play, where the pulling guard leads the ball carrier through the hole Or is that too simplified for what we mean here?

Seems like some of this is terminology Blocking an area rather than a person seems fairly fundamental when the players aren't lined up helmet to helmet. Nobody would really "invent" that because it had to happen at the point a preponderance of defenders backed off the line. Looks like traps were very common in the 40's according to Marion Motley bio stuff that popped up.

Does a trap have zone blocking? From what I know, trap blocking is actually more associated with man blocking schemes. Most zone blocking schemes in the NFL today don't do a lot of pulling or trapping. I could be wrong, but I do remember the Steeler's under Cowher used a primarily man blocking scheme and loved the trap play it works very well against penetrating 1-gap schemes and I vividly remember them tearing the Bears apart , while Denver was the epitome of zone block and it seemed like they were much more inclined to just leave their linemen in the same order.

The Noll teams were famous for trap blocking. When Steeler linemen from that era are asked whether a similar trapping scheme would work today, their answer is invariably that the modern turnover in offensive lineman would make it impossible to develop the necessary timing.

It's tricky timing but it seems to me it's more out of use due to being more or less obsolete by the use of a lead blocking back. More effective, not as challenging. Maybe not as much potential for surprise. But LBs key on the back a lot now so any surprise is a crapshoot. A trap is just a pulling guard, lead blocking for the back.

It's value was likely mostly in what LBs of the day expected when a guard and tackle opened a hole like that. Now put in plays where any of your linemen might make that trap block, and use a trap block on most of your running plays, and you're starting to describe Noll's offense.

A couple of advantages were that 1 a defender with a clear path to the ballcarrier would become suspicious, and 2 the scheme was different enough that it would be difficult for opponents to simulate with their scout teams. Yes, I am definitely simplifying.

Not trying to define, but just explain for the context of making my point. I don't mean to say it wasn't effective, but as I say below, was effective at that time, I think, because of what a lot of offensive play led a LB to expect in that event.

Some of the fuzziness of the distinction may indeed be an issue with semantics, but I think it's only that fuzzy if we look at zone vs. I'd read an article Doug wrote on Yahoo that cited the Lombardi do-dad block and it's place in the ancestry of zone blocking.

I think it's clear that it was one piece of innovation that the evolution of zone blocking borrowed. The practice of doubling a defender, specifically in a way to move one blocker out to block a linebacker, is very inegrated into zone blocking, as a modern scheme. That's not to say a man scheme team couldn't fit it in. But it's clearly an antecedant of ZBS. But the do-dad isn't really an antecedant of zone blocking, as a concept, as a response to defensive trickery designed to get a guy past hat-on-hat assignment blocking.

And in that light, do-dad isn't part of the evolution of the concept of blocking space. That's the minor issue I have with terminology, and I think that's where some of the hangups are. But do-dad was a blocking trick that ZBS pulled from and uses today. Your spectacular YouTube clips thank you! But no more work for me today don't show designed tricks, except for pulling trapping, and chipping receivers initiating a block and then going out to receive.

I wonder if they even had blocking assignments. It looks like they just lined up and lurched forward. Blocking because there's a guy there, and it's how it's done. No schematic design, strategy or any of that stuff. Specifically, the do-dad as Lombardi described it is a two-on-two responsibility concept, and it's probably best described as a man-zone hybrid in concept if not execution because there are player assignments as well as area hybrids. If the defender with inside responsibility does X, we will do Y.

But Lombardi's do-dad also had elemts of immediate second-level blocking upon the ascent from the backfield of the fullback a much more prevelant position in his day , in which the tackle would head up on assignment as opposed to how a play might dictate after the fact. Also, Lombardi described the long trap log block, it's often called today as a seperate idea in his book.

There are some pulls in zone blocking -- Gibbs loves tackle pulls, where the tackle extends out quickly to block outside the edge -- but it sounds like the trap stuff you're talking about would have its roots in man blocking. As you can see from the description and illustrations, the slant and angle defensive scheme posed a big problem for man blocking schemes.

Offensive coaches needed to come up with a solution, and that solution was zone blocking. With zone blocking, all the offensive linemen will work in tandem to block the defenders, rather than each lineman being responsible to block an individual defender.

Depending on the offensive play called, at least two offensive linemen will work together in their blocking scheme on each side of the field. Some offensive linemen may still have only one blocking responsibility, again depending on the offensive play and defensive scheme being used. This gives a nice initial push at the point of attack to prevent defensive linemen from breaking free into the backfield.

In our example, the offense will have a fullback and running back in the backfield, a quarterback under center, and one tight end lined up to the right. The defense counters with four defensive linemen, as well as the Sam linebacker lining up in tight toward the line of scrimmage. At the snap, the center is responsible for blocking the nose tackle lined up head-up on him. The fullback is responsible for picking up the defensive end on the left side of the field.

The guard and tackle on each side of the center will combine for the zone blocking double teams. On the left side of the line, they'll double team the defensive tackle. On the right side, they'll double team the defensive end. The next step in the zone blocking scheme deals directly with how to block these two linebackers -- the Will and the Mike, in our example.

The responsibility of blocking these two players will land with either the offensive tackles or the offensive guards. One of these players on each side of the field will come off their initial double team block to get to the second level and pick up the Will and the Mike, respectively.

Which player comes off the initial double team block will depend on where the defensive lineman is lined up and where the initial push goes. Again, the zone blocking scheme will start with the offensive tackle and guards combining for a double team block at the line of scrimmage, followed by one of these linemen peeling off to block a second-level linebacker. Now let's zero in on the right side of the field to illustrate the example of which offensive lineman will peel off to block the Mike linebacker.

In this case, the defensive end is shaded to the outside shoulder of the right offensive tackle. Where the defensive end goes -- and how the offensive linemen double team him -- will determine which offensive lineman blocks the Mike.

If the defensive end stays to the outside through the C gap , then the offensive tackle will stay on him while the offensive guard peels off to pick up the Mike. If the defensive end goes to the inside through the B gap , then the offensive guard will stay on him while the offensive tackle peels off to pick up the Mike. For the zone blocking scheme to work properly, there are some keys that offensive linemen need to follow. This will close any holes between the linemen and prevent defenders from busting through them.