OLine Pride Weekly – Art of Pass Protection
In this edition of Oline Pride Weekly, I’m going to coach us up on the art and laws of pass protection. Pass protection is when an offensive line athlete drives backward out of their stance to block a defensive lineman.…
Access all of Prep Redzone
Continue reading this article and more.
Continue Reading
In this edition of Oline Pride Weekly, I’m going to coach us up on the art and laws of pass protection.
Pass protection is when an offensive line athlete drives backward out of their stance to block a defensive lineman.
Pass protection is one of the hardest and most uncommon things to teach because it takes time to train the body to properly take a pass set while maintaining the edge of the offense. What’s the edge of the offense you ask? The edge of the offense are made by the offensive tackles. The tackles outside palm, shoulder, knee and hip all create the edge of the offense. Tackles set the width and guards set the depth of the pocket, so if the offensive line athlete loses their edge or if they get out of posture the quarterback is in trouble. Pass pro is so difficult because we are asking usually the heaviest players to surrender space going backward while being able to block what’s usually the other team’s biggest and best athletes.
The laws of pass pro as I define them are,
1, Get out of stance
2, Knee to midline
3, Stab and grab
It’s imperative as an offensive lineman that you have a plan prior to every snap. Pass pro starts from the ground up and having a proper stance is vital to being able to help yourself drive back on the angle needed to intersect the defenders rush angle.
Getting out of the stance is by far one of the biggest keys to having a successful pass set. An easy coaching cue to remind yourself of is to “start the lawnmower” and think of ripping the fingertips off the ground to help yourself drive back on your angle.
If you’re working with a younger athlete who’s never started a lawnmower, an easy coaching cue can be “rip the beyblade.”
Another cue that I’ve found success using with youth linemen is telling them to act like the ground is hot and rip the fingernails off as soon as you hear the H of down-set-hit.
The second law of pass pro is knee to midline, the coaching point here it to have your outside knee always in half a man relationship to the defender. I tell all of my clients from the NFL down to youth football, to think of having your Pinocchio nose to the defenders inside ear hole. Pinocchio was a fictional character who had a long nose that grew every time he told a fib. So think as if you had a long nose like Pinocchio and keep it to the defenders inside ear hole in pass protection.
The third law of pass pro and my personal favorite is stab and grab. As a OLinemen you have to think of making contact with the spear tips (the palm) of the hand and keeping the thumb out and elbow down. For example, a heavyweight boxer will twist his first at the last second before contact to maximize impact and the same thing is true for landing a powerful strike as a OLinemen.
I teach guys to use independent hands and think of stabbing through the defender’s breastplate and hitting to fit, vice and grip to end their rush.