Transcription
Whether they're mauling open gaps in the run game or keeping your franchise quarterback upright, everything operates through the offensive line. The position seems an enigma, with colossal men communicating in code to combat chaos created by crafty coaches. But like much of football, it's actually incredibly simple, just hidden behind layers of jargon and adjustments. So, let's break down those barriers and talk about pass protection.
Let's start by getting some definition conditions nailed down. If you're a football intermediate and know your basic line terminology, you can skip to 2:26. The offensive line is made up of five players: two tackles, two guards, and a center. The tackles get the big bucks, having to take on the most athletic players on the field and edge rushers. They're typically the largest of the unit, and coaches prioritize foot speed, length, and pass pro skills. The guards are next in and tend to be stouter players who are strong enough to take on big interior defensive linemen and open up gaps in the run. The last remaining player is the center, responsible for the snap and helping set up the protection. Typically, centers are the smallest of the unit, as they tend to be involved in more two-on-one blocks. A great one is worth their weight in gold.
To set protections, offensive linemen need to know who and where exactly they're blocking. Each gap between them is labeled with the innermost, the A gaps, counting outwards. Offensive lines always protect the A and B gaps first, as interior pressure is the death of any play. If the line is unable to account for every rusher, they aim to leave the guy furthest from the QB unblocked. To accurately describe where the defensive linemen are positioned, they're labeled as techniques or techs, defining both the gap they're occupying and what shade they have on the lineman. Playing directly over the center is a zero tech, and then we count outwards again with a player playing very wide at the tight end, often referred to as a wide nine. The box is the area on the field defined as two yards outside the widest lineman, including tight ends, to eight yards past the line of scrimmage. Any defensive player inside this zone is considered in the box. How a defense lines up in this box, both from a defensive line and linebacker perspective, is referred to as the defensive front.
Now that we've got our definitions down, how do you actually protect the quarterback? Well, the aim is to create a pocket of calm space for them to operate from. To do this, each play will have a specific protection scheme in the play call, then depending on the front shown by the defense, the line communicates to adjust it, making sure they've got the numbers covered and the best angles to win their blocks. While there's plenty of nuance, these protections break down into five main categories.
The first is 5 protection or big-on-big protection, often referred to as Bob. And this is exactly how it sounds: getting each of your big men on one of their big men and taking the fight to it. It's the man coverage of offensive line play. This has a lot of great advantages: you're matching up your biggest dudes on their biggest dudes, it's easy to teach, and it works beautifully against certain fronts. However, it has some rather glaring drawbacks. Firstly, it's very susceptible to stunts and twists, with players easily dragged out of position or bumped into traffic chasing a man. Secondly, depending on the front shown, you can find yourself tangled up. It's still largely employed in today's league, especially against bear and eagle fronts. However, it's usually front and game plan specific.
The second form of pass protection is the full slide. The line will all block in one direction, with each blocker responsible for a defender in the gap to the direction of the call, with a running back or fullback taking the backside rusher. This is the easiest scheme to teach, as linemen just need to know whether to go left or right, and it's very effective in both the quick and play-action game, allowing for a quarterback to fire with good sight lines on a three-step drop or have the backside end cut with the wham block in a natural play-action fake. However, there are some obvious drawbacks. First, it often puts a running back on a defensive end, not something you want to be doing often or for very long. Secondly, you want to slide towards the direction of the play for advantageous angles, but the rush doesn't always line up that way, and the wrong fronts or blitzes might see your QB in chaos.
The third category is the half slide, also referred to as jet protection or turnback. And it's a combination of both big-on-big blocking and slide rules to the strong side (that's the side with the tight end). Man rules are played, getting your guard and tackle matched up one-on-one with the defensive lineman to the backside. The line will slide, zoning off the gaps and looking for work. If they're free to work out who to slide to, you will hear the quarterback call out the mic. This doesn't have to be the actual mic linebacker, just who the offense are setting as the mic to define their blocking rules. The line will then slide toward the first weak-side player from the mic. Setting the mic and being able to change it allows the quarterback and line to adjust who to slide to, able to adapt based on the defensive front and account for any unexpected defenders. While the idea is to have two men go big-on-big and three men slide, defenses don't always make this possible in their positioning. In this case, the first uncovered player starts to slide, turning back from the man side and zoning off the gaps. Here, the guard is uncovered, so he'll start the slide, making this a four-man slide and creating much better angles for the offensive line to account for the potential of linebackers blitzing. The running back is also into block, making a two-read between the remaining linebackers. Following our philosophy of always protecting the A gaps first, the running back will read the defined mic first, and if he's not coming, move to his second read, the sander. This is also taught as the one-you-two-me rule, as the QB must be alert: if one backer comes, don't worry, your running back's got it. But if two come, well, now someone's unblocked, and you've got to get that ball out fast. With the flexibility to shift and adjust versus various fronts and the back end to help out against the blitz, this makes the protection incredibly versatile against multiple fronts, allowing for it to be used on almost any dropback. However, it isn't without its weaknesses.
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The first weakness in the half slide is the dreaded four-weak, with the defense sending four rushers from the weak side. No matter how you slide, you're still going to be a man short. The half slide has answers here too, but each option comes with a drawback. Perhaps the simplest option is a "Tom" call from the QB, telling the running back to go weak side and pick up the extra man. However, this now leaves nobody to block the Mike or Sam, so the QB has to be alert if either blitz. You could also give a "Fan" call, pushing the tackle out wide to pick up the extra man with the back then filling a gap, but again, this can leave you in a bad matchup with the defensive lineman on a running back. Another way to counter this is with hot routes and side adjusts. A hot route is a route that a QB will automatically throw to if there's an unaccounted-for man in the protection, giving him an available outlet to avoid the sack and potentially punish a defense. While many think of hot routes as checkdowns, if you're creative with them and know where to place them, they become deadly. A side adjust is a route changed by a receiver based upon a player blitzing. This is usually built into the offense as an automatic adjustment with no call needing to take place. This is great against four-weak blitzes where a non-traditional box player is coming unaccounted for, attacking the space vacated by the rush. However, in both these instances, if the defense understands how your protection works, they can work out where you're going to throw hot and guard this too. On third down, this is of significant advantage, with hot routes and side adjusts often being shallow routes, allowing the defense to force the ball short. The QB might have made the correct decision, but the defense dictated where the ball was going. That's four-weak and answers, but its cousin, four-strong, is just as annoying to deal with. It's exactly as it sounds: sending four from the strong side. And with slide protections generally sliding weak, linemen can find themselves with nobody to block, sliding away from the actual threat. As we mentioned earlier, in the half slide, the back has a two-read between the Mike and Sam, so if both come, the QB is now forced to throw hot every time. But there's ways to deal with these problems. In theory, you want to slide to the weak side, as that's where the rush is most likely to come from. But there's no reason you can't swap the direction of the slide, giving an opposite call or a "Joker" call in some languages, flips the direction of the protection with the first man on the weak side uncovered now responsible for starting the slide. This can be combined with changing the mic, like we spoke about earlier, to really nail down who to block. The other option, and one we've neglected so far, is simply to leave an extra man in protection with a "Stay" call. The QB can keep another man in, usually a fullback or tight end. This is particularly useful against four-strong looks, as they're already positioned to take on a linebacker or extra player creeping into the box on the strong side. However, coaches are reluctant to do this, as it removes a player from the pass pattern, and to the strong side, the tight end or fullback are usually a significant part of the play. At the NFL level, knowing how you're going to deal with overloads, whether it be four-weak or four-strong, is one of the keys to game planning. At college and the high school level, they might have one or two ways to deal with it. In the NFL, every option is available, and it changes week to week, drive to drive, and play to play. The mechanics are simple, it's just shrouded in a layer of adjustments.
There are two final categories of protections to discuss, and maybe the most useful an offense has at its disposal: play-action protections. Not only does faking the run slow pursuit of the quarterback, it creates unexpected angles to attack rushers. You get to dictate to the defense where you're blocking, not the other way around. One of the most common forms of play-action you see is the fake power, using a pulling lineman to fool the linebackers into stepping up, only to hit them with a route in behind. Here it is again from the shotgun and thrown in rhythm. There is little the linebackers can do to stop this, forcing the defense to change front or coverage. Moving the QB off the spot with play-action is also a great way to create a clean look. The rush is tempted by the fake, and when they redirect to find the QB, he's not where they expect. There are two ways of doing this that are often confused: the boot action and the naked boot. In the naked, the entire offensive line is working in one direction, and it's the QB's job to hold the backside end with the fake or beat him with his legs. In the boot action, an offensive lineman back or tight end will work back against a run-fake action, meaning when the QB changes direction, there's someone there to protect against a free rusher. Here, they're all focused on the boot out, and nobody picks up the running back, leaving a wide-open score. A cousin of this and the final category of protections are rollouts, often referred to as sprint protection. Again, the QB is going to move off the spot, but this time without a play-action, sprinting to the called side while the line slides in the same direction. The tackle away from the play will hook up to protect the edge, and the back's job will be dependent on position, either joining him to protect that edge if aligned away from the slide or cutting down the end if he's to the play's side. The play will then look to create a quick pick play to the flat, making this perfect in short-yardage situations. Against teams who love to blitz on short yardage, this can create big, big trouble.
Coaches also have other tools at their disposal to slow down the rush if they're finding no luck with protection schemes. One way is to beat the rush with the speed of the throw. Quick three-step drops should get the ball out before the rush has any chance to get home. Against a team that is overenthusiastic with the blitz, a screen play is the perfect counter, either tempting the rush to the quarterback and then finding a player in the created space or by throwing the ball outside quickly, bypassing the traffic. Formations can also really help too. Spread isn't just effective because it gets you more players out in pass patterns; it significantly simplifies the rush look. With multiple players removed from the box, it's much easier for the quarterback and line to tell where the rush is coming from, and usually simple half-slide rules can pick up most combinations and stunts. However, in spread, it can be easy to dictate hot routes or short throws due to lack of ability to block the extra man. The QB might know where the extra man is coming from, but the defense can learn the hot routes and force you short on third. Sliding the cover to camp on it, starting the cat-and-mouse chase all over again.
Hopefully, this video has shown you that pass protection and football in general is a simple sport that we choose to make complex. If this video proves popular, I'll make one about the run game, cuz there's plenty to discuss there too. The offensive line are the unsung heroes on the field. When they say the game is won in the trenches, they really mean it.