Zone blocking explained

[Greg C.]

I just watched Channel 5 news and Larry McCarren explained zone blocking. He showed film of a play the Falcons ran against the Packers, a sweep to the right, to illustrate his point. The basic idea is that linemen work in pairs, following the same track. This allows one of the linemen to be very aggressive because he has a teammate backing him up and either double-teaming or cleaning up whichever defender is left unblocked.

The way it worked on this play was that the right tackle blocked the defensive end across from him, sealing off the outside, while the tight end went out and blocked Na'ill Diggs. On the inside, the right guard blocked Grady Jackson, and because Grady tried getting to the outside, the center came up and blocked Nick Barnett. On the other side of the line, the left tackle went after the other DT or DE (I forget which), freeing the left guard to go after linebacker Robert Thomas, who was trailing the play.

It really didn't look any different to me from normal line play. If Larry hadn't explained what was going on I would not have noticed anything different. But hey, Atlanta and Denver were the top two rushing teams in the league this year, so I'm all for it.

 

[mattresell]

As long as it works, I could care less if I understand it. Which I don't. Thanks for trying to explain it though.

 

[retiredgrampa]

All "schemes" look great when they work and dumb when they don't. If every blocker gets his man, every play is a potential TD. Damned seldom does it happen, though.

 

[NDPackerFan]

All "schemes" look great when they work and dumb when they don't. If every blocker gets his man, every play is a potential TD. Damned seldom does it happen, though.

Exactly retiredgrampa...One thing I heard about zone blocking is that the linemen typically flow to an "area" or "zone" and take the first man in that zone. I like that concept because pre-determining who you are going to block can have mixed results. D-Lineman that stunt or cross, for example, can throw the entire blocking scheme to hell. I think you see that a lot of times where Favre barely gets the handoff to the RB and he's being dropped. I believe that something happened on the D-Line that the O-Line hasn't accounted for which, in zone blocking, seems to happen less often.