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The four rules of blocking.

 

The first time I was ever granted the opportunity to watch a football coach at work, the first lesson and the one that sticks with me is the coach's approach with his offensive line. I remember him taking them down to a 20 yard line, lining them up and informing them of their task.

He said "Before I teach you any scheme, or system or discipline, I want you to learn four basic rules of blocking these rules are to be followed for a pass rush, or a run play. You break or fail to follow these rules I will bench you, no questions asked."

1. Never turn your man loose uncontested into a play. Sure, he may get the jump on you, but I better see spikes in your body before he's allowed to attempt any kind of tackle or redirection.

2. When you have a man blocked in pass protection, you never ever surrender him until you hear the whistle or a change where you are asked to push the pressure away from the middle. (Center calls for help of some kind.)

3. If given the opportunity during a run play to get up the field and hit an unblocked defender without penalty, you take it, never sit on your heels once you see the runner in the open field.

4. Finish, this is the biggest rule, there should never be a point on the field where I see your body stone still on a play, even if it's just you hustling up the field because you've put your man down. This is my golden rule.

 

These four rules were used to gauge effort. I don't see the so called seahawks showing this kind of effort. Sean Locklear has made me dislike him so strongly because Brandon Frye despite being overmatched definitely gave more effort on a partially pulled groin than I ever saw Locklear give all season. Nothing would make me jump for joy more than seeing his name on the cut list after I keyed on him for the last four games and have seen nothing that makes him redeemable. Skill or not, he's not working hard enough on the field. Were I the coach, he'd have been benched before I even considered Spencer's position as in question. 

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I love this. Feel like sending it to Solari.

And this -

I don’t see the so called seahawks showing this kind of effort.

made me laugh. I don’t know what you call them either, but my name on Sundays for this team is usually of the 4 lettered variety.

I'm gonna go calm submissive on your ass.

by Dukeshire on Jan 1, 2010 4:04 AM PST reply actions  

Good point on Locklear...

I know it sometimes looks like a guy is giving more or less effort due to the player’s fluidity, so I always hesitate to judge, but it really looks like he hasn’t been as tenacious as he should be.

Bird Law in this country isn't governed by reason.

by Tyler Jorgensen on Jan 1, 2010 9:53 AM PST reply actions  

My observations exactly

and more ammo for my dislike of the current coaching staff. Instead of flapping his lips during post-game press conferences and calling players out, More should have been demanding effort or benching players, even if only for a down or a series. This is part of the reason I love college basketball and hate pro basketball.

by diehard82 on Jan 1, 2010 11:01 AM PST reply actions  

Where?

(As there are no longer CC football programs in the state of WA).

Bird Law in this country isn't governed by reason.

by Tyler Jorgensen on Jan 1, 2010 6:10 PM PST up reply actions  

I KNOW Walla Walla had one in 95/96, because I played hoops at Lower Columbia, and a couple the Walla Walla basketball players also were on the football team.

One, Dorian Boose, was a starter//All-Pac10 type player on the DL.

He was a beast, had a monster alley-oop, then our stud, Gabe Matthews, came right down and dunked right on him!

It was the craziest back to back dunks I’ve ever seen!

Bird Law in this country isn't governed by reason.

by Tyler Jorgensen on Jan 1, 2010 10:38 PM PST up reply actions  

The program itself was dropped shortly after that. I think 2003 or 2004.

I got the chance thanks to a leadership training course I got involved in right after highschool and basically shadowed the sports programs, football and Basketball for the entire seasons of both sports. It was an incredible opportunity to learn about how to watch how coaches run practice and the like. Games were different. I never got to observe during a game and I would kill to be on the sideline when the shit hits the fan if you know what I mean.

by Joshua Kasparek on Jan 1, 2010 11:45 PM PST up reply actions  

Oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean...

I’ve been there from both sides, playing and coaching… I’ve seen a highly respected coach go absolutely apeshit, and I’ve drawn up game winning shots before as well.

Did you get to shadow when the coaches plan practice/game rotations, etc? A huge part of coaching are those moments…

The place I coached in Cali, we kept a fridge in the coaches office (the box behind home plate where the stats/announcer were), and someone would sneak in on certain practice days early and fill it with beer and hide the beer behind sodas. After practice when the kids have gone, we’d close all the windows and lock the door and get drunk while debating the cuts, the rotations/batting orders, plans of attack, etc. Those were some great memories, and we had some damn good teams…

Bird Law in this country isn't governed by reason.

by Tyler Jorgensen on Jan 2, 2010 1:11 AM PST up reply actions  

I got the chance to really observe offensive gameplanning more than defense.

It actually made me more interested in defensive football because offense seemed to be more more about assumptions than solid play designs. Defense dealt in absolutes in reacting to what is going on and that seemed more interesting to me.

If I ever got the chance to be a coach, defense is where I’d like to be. The defensive coach was a cool guy because he also worked on basketball before he coached football and he brought a lot of that style to the defense. It’s the first time I ever got to learn the difference between a defensive scheme and a defensive system

A scheme is how you set up your players.

A system is the series of responses to an unfolding situation and I took a ton of that to heart. Bryce Fisher at the end of 2008 said that Seattle’s defense had a scheme not a system and it was weird to understand totally what he meant. A system will allow a player to react on the field to formations and situations without ever needing to have a defense called because he’ll know how every one of his teammates will react to the play and how he should play it based on the system.

It also means that subtle adjustments need less reps in practice because most of the changes won’t be changing the flow for the other players if that makes some sense. You do need the right types of players to run a system, but it is less restrictive than if you have players that can only play one scheme.

I sat in on the offensive game plans sometimes where guys would watch the same defense over and over trying to solve it like some kind of math problem. I’ve never eaten more pizza or felt less accomplished than after one of those sessions.

by Joshua Kasparek on Jan 2, 2010 6:46 PM PST up reply actions  

Heheh. Nice.

Basketball is about ‘systems’ too. WHere you mention “allow a player to react on the field to formations and situations without ever needing to have a defense called because he’ll know how every one of his teammates will react to the play and how he should play it based on the system” is very true in hoops too.

Bird Law in this country isn't governed by reason.

by Tyler Jorgensen on Jan 2, 2010 10:40 PM PST up reply actions  

Just watched Russell Okung in the Cotton Bowl

He had an injured knee, they say, but playing against an undersized speed rusher he stayed with his man all day and made him disappear. I never saw his man near the QB. Every time the whistle blew, Okung was either on top of his man, pushing his man around, or running down field looking for someone to hit.

Its so hard to rate college athletes and imagine how they may develop in the pros. But I think I’d like seeing Okung in Seahawks blue next year.

"Football players are temperamental. That's 90 percent temper and 10 percent mental." - Doug Plank

by Stevo's on Jan 2, 2010 3:01 PM PST reply actions  

I like him.

If the Seahawks drafted him and Mike Iupati in the first round, I would be quite happy with that.

Top 10 talent that I covet:
Ndamukong Suh, Gerald McCoy, and Sam Bradford.

Mid-first to 2nd round talent that I covet:
Mike Iupati, Golden Tate, and Earl Thomas.

4th round and beyond:
Freddie Barnes

by Carl Shinyama on Jan 2, 2010 4:39 PM PST up reply actions  

Who?

Okung or Iupati? If it’s Iupati, he’s out of his fucking mind.

Top 10 talent that I covet:
Ndamukong Suh, Gerald McCoy, and Sam Bradford.

Mid-first to 2nd round talent that I covet:
Mike Iupati, Golden Tate, and Earl Thomas.

4th round and beyond:
Freddie Barnes

by Carl Shinyama on Jan 2, 2010 9:10 PM PST up reply actions  

His write-up seems pretty fair.

I haven’t watched Okung much this year, and I only watched like the 2nd quarter of that game. I didn’t see him perform badly at all, but I didn’t see any dominance.

In fact, I haven’t seen him dominate anyone since the Oregon game last year. But then again, I haven’t watched him much this year.

Top 10 talent that I covet:
Ndamukong Suh, Gerald McCoy, and Sam Bradford.

Mid-first to 2nd round talent that I covet:
Mike Iupati, Golden Tate, and Earl Thomas.

4th round and beyond:
Freddie Barnes

by Carl Shinyama on Jan 2, 2010 9:46 PM PST up reply actions  

I know stuff like this sounds nice and inspirational, but it isn't always practical.

What appears to be laziness can be an effort to manage their fuel tanks. As a coach, I’d rather my lineman expend max energy at the point-of-attack than wasting it on efforts away from the play that are going to be futile 99% of the time. These are big dudes that simply cannot give max effort every second of every play. This is not to say there are not lazy players, of course.

by waldo rojas on Jan 4, 2010 2:17 PM PST reply actions  

Conditioning.

Is all I’m gonna say.

Talents that I covet:

Ndamukong Suh, Gerald McCoy, Sam Bradford, Mike Iupati, Golden Tate, Earl Thomas, and Freddie Barnes

by Carl Shinyama on Jan 4, 2010 7:14 PM PST up reply actions  

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