Zone Blocking vs Man Blocking

I heard multiple times this year that "when the Seahawks go to Man Blocking, they have success.

I found a couple of articles that talk about the difference between Zone and Man.


For those of you unfamiliar with the Denver offensive line scheme, they use a technique known as "zone blocking".

In a "man" or "drive" blocking scheme the lineman is responsible for an individual, and the play is designed for a running back to hit a particular gap.

The zone blocking scheme, on the other hand, has a lineman blocking an area instead of a designated defensive player. If multiple linemen are blocking an area than one can break off and block into the second level

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-a ... n-blocking


What Is: Gap Blocking vs. Zone
By Seth — January 27th, 2017 at 2:00 PM

http://mgoblog.com/content/what-gap-blocking-vs-zone



Man blocking schemes are the easiest for coaches to teach and for linemen, and backs to learn. All they need to do is be able to count.

https://www.xandolabs.com/conceptblocki ... ckman.html


By Rich Alercio Offensive Line Researcher X&O Labs

In a 25-year career as an offensive line coach and clinician for youth, high school and college coaching staffs, I have come to one conclusion: Teams have way too many running plays with varying blocking schemes in their offenses. They block one play this way and another play that way.

For example, they think if the 3-technique shifts to a 1-tech a different play must be called. I have always subscribed to the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) methodology, especially for the big guys up front. The offensive linemen do not care about all the creative ways you can get the ball to your best player and all the window dressing used to do so. They just want to have great confidence in knowing what step to take and where to take it.

https://www.xandolabs.com/conceptblocki ... block.html



Differences between the zone and power running schemes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/foo ... 5c648ea5eb

WAY too many times on a run play, our Oline essentially whiffed on blocking the DTs and DEs because they were graded (my guess) on if they got to the 2nd level and pancaked a LB or a DB.

I've had it with the ZBS.

Awesome stuff man. Your link posts are the best. :2thumbs:

I've wondered as well if we'll move away from ZBS. If I remember right, though, ZBS was Pete's idea. He had Gibbs in here for a few weeks before he retired and we brought in Cable, no?

If Pete likes ZBS, it likely remains. But who knows? Maybe he's rethinking his own offensive philosophy.

Good posts

There have been a few other threads on why ZBS is NOT as efficient any longer due to rule changes. That what allowed Denver to succeed simply doesn't work the same way today.

WindCityHawk":y8kz19oq said:

I've wondered as well if we'll move away from ZBS. If I remember right, though, ZBS was Pete's idea. He had Gibbs in here for a few weeks before he retired and we brought in Cable, no?

If Pete likes ZBS, it likely remains. But who knows? Maybe he's rethinking his own offensive philosophy.

Click to expand...

If Pete likes the ZBS and prefers it, you gotta wonder why????

WindCityHawk":1anta9o3 said:

I've wondered as well if we'll move away from ZBS. If I remember right, though, ZBS was Pete's idea. He had Gibbs in here for a few weeks before he retired and we brought in Cable, no?

If Pete likes ZBS, it likely remains. But who knows? Maybe he's rethinking his own offensive philosophy.

Click to expand...

Yes ZBS was Petes idea but times have changed and Pete is on final wake up call so I say he very well may. Depends on new OC IMO.

TheLegendOfBoom":1qs9n7jd said:

WindCityHawk":1qs9n7jd said:

I've wondered as well if we'll move away from ZBS. If I remember right, though, ZBS was Pete's idea. He had Gibbs in here for a few weeks before he retired and we brought in Cable, no?

If Pete likes ZBS, it likely remains. But who knows? Maybe he's rethinking his own offensive philosophy.

Click to expand...

If Pete likes the ZBS and prefers it, you gotta wonder why????

Click to expand...

Likely because it allows a more dynamic run game assuming blocks and reads are made correctly by the lineman.

TheLegendOfBoom":2491nooh said:

WindCityHawk":2491nooh said:

I've wondered as well if we'll move away from ZBS. If I remember right, though, ZBS was Pete's idea. He had Gibbs in here for a few weeks before he retired and we brought in Cable, no?

If Pete likes ZBS, it likely remains. But who knows? Maybe he's rethinking his own offensive philosophy.

Click to expand...

If Pete likes the ZBS and prefers it, you gotta wonder why????

Click to expand...

I do. I do wonder why.

Pete is a defensive coach and prefers to leave the O and the internal mechanics of the O to others zone blocking vs.power blocking to the offensive coaches, whatever works. Just get it done. I truly believe he supports success and doesn't truly give a rats tush as long as the O works. It wasn't so it was time for major changes.

Zone blocking can be effective. But not with cable, it was painfully obvious for a while now the guy doesnt know how to tell the players wtf to do and the o line was a mess because of this. They were making rookie mistakes and looking like a high school squad. I remember a few weeks back someone posted clips of the mistakes they were making and it was not pretty at all. Cable sucked. Glad hes gone.

So .. does this mean we have been hiring linemen who can’t count?

brimsalabim":31pm8y9e said:

So .. does this mean we have been hiring linemen who can’t count?

Click to expand...

Or hiring linemen who are built to be big mean drive blockers i.e. Ifedi and MOVING them to a new position then asking them to learn a crazy blocking scheme. I mean hell, he's so confused he can't even figure out when to come off of the snap.

I'd say it's always been dependent on reach blocks and defensive players have become more aggressive and adept at avoiding it (along with the rule changes). They don't allow the offensive linemen to help each other as much anymore and overpursuit is more difficult to punish. Being dependent on the threat of QB runs isn't a great plan in the NFL, even with one as big and durable as Cam but even less so with a QB who should be keeping hits down.

whatever scheme has pulling guards is the scheme this team needs to utlize

kthebestwayw":37a7njsu said:

whatever scheme has pulling guards is the scheme this team needs to utlize

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And a fullback!