Breakdown Sports

I love receivers releasing inside of the offensive EMOL. This can be done from the RB position after receiving a play fake. It can come from the FB or blocking back (sniffer), where it looks like he is executing a lead block. Or even from a TE aligned inside another TE. In this post, I'm going to explain why this fairly basic design (and not all together new design, but one that is coming back to light), is so effective. Example of the TE Throwback the Falcons ran in '16 season. 3 TEs in the game. Clear-out over the top. Sneak a guy back across the field. pic.twitter.com/xI6kM7WFHB — Matt Bowen (@MattBowen41) November 21, 2017

Iowa football has been utilizing the base stretch run scheme that made the likes of the Washington Redskins and Denver Broncos dominant in the 90s and into the new century. I’ve discussed outside zone quite a bit before , as have many other places ; rather than continue along the same lines, I’m now going to make a distinction and a further distinction with regards to Iowa football. There is Outside Zone – also known as wide zone – where the intent is to out flank the defense and get to the edge; this is most commonly seen from spread teams. Then there is zone stretch, where the ball can bounce to the outside, but more often than not will be cut inside the EMOL, this is the classic Joe Gibbs and Shanahan offense. Both can be called stretch or wide or outside zone, it’s more of a philosophical difference (though in Gibb's case, he had a play called "bounce" and a play called "Outside", that were just that very distinction). Iowa also adds in the lead bl...

Previously, we discussed how Michigan and teams like MSU are playing pulling blockers . They key in both schemes can be boiled down to taking away the numbers advantage the offense is trying to gain at the point of attack. This is down by flowing across the formation by a backside LB or by inserting safeties into the run fills. As teams start keying pulling OL, they begin diagnosing plays faster and taking away the offense's advantage. That's where the offense can begin doing things to take away those keys or use the pull as a false key. Let's look at how Michigan's playbook handles this. Patrick Semansky / AP

Michigan’s base run play is Power O . Over the past half decade, MSU has specialized in shutting down pro-style rushing attacks, and with that comes shutting down the Power O run play. It got to the point that Stanford, during the 2014 Rose Bowl, rarely even tried to execute their most standard play. In this post, we want to investigate what makes so effective against the Power O run.

Previously, I talked about gap discipline , and focused a portion of the article on pulling OL and inserting a FB into the mix. These things present a difficulty for the defense, as they need to adjust on the fly to ever-shifting gap responsibilities. Pulling OL add gaps to the point of attack and FBs can be inserted to add gaps at any location along the LOS; and the defense must adjust post-snap to these new gaps. Jim Harbaugh loves to use this to his advantage. Adding gaps to the POA forces the defense to think and hesitate, and when they do that, his Power-based offense can start churning out yards. Furthermore, with more and more teams going to spread formations and a zone based rushing attack (though this is starting to revert again to tighter formations and man/gap schemes again, as all things are cyclical in football), defenders are less comfortable with how to execute soundly (as Spielman has said multiple times the last few weeks). The downside of doing this is that it gives...

For a defense to be successful, they need to have "gap discipline". Being "gap sound" means having a defender in place to stop the offense on both sides of every blocker. By having a defender responsible for stuffing the play in each gap, the defense forms a wall at the LOS, and the offense has no way to be successful. It's the offense's goal to force the defense to lose gap discipline or be unable to cover the gap (by creating space). Each gap is an option for the ball carrier, and each open gap is potential for the offense to spring a play. In this post, we'll look at how gaps form against a few formations, and how lead blockers and pulling blockers change the numbers at the point of attack.

In this post we are going to look at the complexities of blocking from the RB position. To the average fan, a FB tends to look like a meat-headed, helmet crunching, out of control thumper. Well, in some ways, that is true, but a FB must also be intelligent, quick to adapt to what is in front of him, and absolutely in control of every situation. Often times in two-back plays, the read for the ball-carrier is defined by the technique and capability of the FB. It is not an easy position, despite often being filled with walk-ons or lower recruited players at the college level. In no ways is this position easy, but that's what makes it so critical, and the variety of blocks that can be performed makes having the option of a lead blocker extremely powerful for any offense. For this exercise, an ILB should be considered a LB that's within the tackle box, while an OLB is a LB that is outside the tackle box.  Return of the Fullback? Photo Courtesy of Detroit News