What are the center's responsibilities?

I was reading a couple of O-line threads and was wondering what the center Is supposed to do pre-snap. Would that have to do with some of the struggles?

Ungar typically makes the line calls for blocking and protection, if you remember Chris Spencers weakness was his inability to recognise the defense and make these calls.

The center will primarily call out the zero man or the Mike linebacker. You'll also hear the QB shout the Mike out as well sometimes, most of the time from the shotgun position because the center isnt viewing his front as much. This helps the line understand which man they need to block according to who is on each side of the Mike.

At the same time, and depending on the scheme, the center can change the protection assignments as well. Which will call for a certain side of the line to block a rusher in a certain way. Either to a certain side or a cut block or even second level depending on the depth of the scheme.

Its the centers job primarily. The rest of the line will sometimes exchange lingo that will inform everyone who they are engaging after the zero has been identified.

so that could explain some o-line struggles without Unger right?

Aristotle22":33fdc0nv said:

so that could explain some o-line struggles without Unger right?

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Sort of. Pete mentioned an issue that fits in with this description, and it was during the Dallas game. He said that Russell wasn't able to help as much as they'd like with the proper line calls that game. It didn't sound like he missed them all or anything, more that there were a few that were called wrong and the Wilson was supposed to be helping out with that since Unger was out.

Aristotle22":13i7jod7 said:

so that could explain some o-line struggles without Unger right?

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Absolutely. Along with Okung's shoulder, a rookie in Britt at RT and no Zach Miller.

There is no one single thing to explain the O-Line's struggles.