Should I Use Wedge Blocking In Youth Football?

Wedge Blocking is what the Single Wing offense is famous for. This may appear like the most irregular form of blocking you will experience, but once you witness it in action, you will turn into a believer. You need to realize that it will appear different to instruct and most likely appear helter-skelter at first. It will take outstanding patience and assurance as you instruct this method to the group.

It will be a slow advancement, but as soon as it has been taught the right way, it will be a crushing artillery in your arsenal. Waste no time teaching this system and start teaching this as early as day one. Your team needs to understand how important the wedge series is to the team. You will be capable of gaining a large amount of yards, and even those vital short yardage downs.

This actually is not difficult to show, but make sure that it is taught right. All lineman have to press into the lineman adjacent to him and form an solid area, wedge or upside down V.

The goal is on the snap of the ball, all blockers need to move together and step straight forward and towards the inside together. If you are using zero line splits, it will be simple to seal shoulders with the player adjacent to them. The key is that all linemen move forward together in harmony. Once your line is as close together as they can get, they now need to move together as one. The group cannot allow any defender to break into the wedge. After the wedge is in place, the squad must practice staying together as one, while moving at equal speed. The purpose of the wedge to remain as one and keeping defenders out for as long as conceivable.

The best way to introduce the wedge is for a coach to stand with a dummy over the right side guard and make the players step, seal, and complete the wedge. After this action is perfected, then have the group move as one and try to knock the coach back down the field. Every player needs to step together, as one as they remain in the wedge. I define perfection as being able to execute the play, or in this case the drill for 10 perfect repetitions.

Opponents will attempt many different techniques to try and break up your wedge. One of the more popular techniques is to dive down at your lineman's knees. The best way to counter this move is to use high knees and step on their backs. Defenders will stop diving at your knees almost instantly when you start stepping on them. Another great counter move is to run one of the wedge fake plays. Fake plays can be extremely effective because the whole defense will be "selling out" in an attempt to stop the wedge. The speedy pass routes or delayed reverses work great. Both the Double Wing and Single Wing have complete wedge series. The wedge can be a wonderful series of plays at all age groups.

Coaching Youth Football - Offensive Line Cut Blocking

A unique style of offensive line blocking is called a chop, or cut. Over the years, a cut, or chop block has been called by some a "dirty" technique. A cut, or chop works great and if taught correct it can keep a dominating defender at bay. No cut, or chop should ever be tried with a vicious intent to hurt any player. I would get confirmation from the association's rules that cut and chop blocking is allowed before I would teach it to any players.

A cut blocking technique is used by offensive linemen, and sometimes other blockers,by blocking legally below the waist (i.e., from the front of the defensive player) in an attempt to bring the defenders to ground, making them unable to pursue a running back for the short time needed for the back to find a gap in the defense. The technique is somewhat controversial, as it carries a risk of serious leg injuries to the blocked defenders.

The San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s and early in the 1990's were famous for their cut technique(and leg-whipping blocking techniques, which is not legal), a maneuver that was ultimately used in the mid-90's by the NFL's Denver Broncos. The Denver Broncos gained a level of fame by using their cut-blocking style (often named a malicious play by other teams) which produced the NFL's top rushing offense for over ten years, but likewise resulted in many defensive football opponents of the Broncos getting injured by the cut blocks. In a Monday Night Football game back in 2004, defensive tackle Tony Williams of the Cincinnati Bengals was injured for the year after a cut block (by the Broncos lineman George Foster), and in 2005, Jacksonville Jaguars defensive guard Paul Spicer was severely hurt on a cut block by Broncos lineman Matt Lepsis. In response to the complaints, in 2004 Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan explained to local reporters and showed them some NFL game film (only watched by and used by coaches) that demonstrated how just about all teams in the NFL use the cut-blocking technique.

As you can see from the above paragraph, there is a great controversy in the NFL regarding cut blocking, so please make sure if you do decide to teach cut blocking to your youth football team you use caution. It is important to show only safe, legal techniques for such a potential dangerous block. We use a simple, yet safe rule regarding chop blocks. Only if you are getting beat, and you can remain on all fours, you can crab block. Our coaches have all players drive, or crab on all fours into the defender.

Wall Blocking Technique For Youth Football

Image : http://www.flickr.com

The more years you coach, you start to recognize certain things remain the same. For myself, it is an introductory offensive line blocking system, known as Wall Blocking. There are some "gurus" who insist they are the founders (which is astonishing since I was implementing it BEFORE they began coaching), but no matter it is a mighty, uncomplicated and good way of coaching your offensive line. It teaches your players how to block as a unit. It is a variation of zone blocking.

This blocking has been the one staple in my over twenty years of coaching pee wee football, for my offensive linemen. Use it since it is simple to teach and works on a variety of grade levels. This style of offensive blocking has served me well with the older tackle kids as well as the younger flag players. It has been used with great success on my championship fourteen year old travel teams as well as the younger teams I have been a part of. Heck, I have even exploited wall blocking on my five year old flag football team.

The easiest manner in which to instruct wall blocking is to start the linemen with very tight splits. When we talk about a line split we are talking about the space between the offensive lineman. You instruct the entire line that on the snap of the football all of the lineman move united, keeping as close to each other as possible.

Teach this technique to both the right and the left making sure the lineman stay together "like a wall" as they move together in unison. The secret is making sure that all of the offensive linemen open up, seal, move in the same direction and at the equivalent speed. There will be multiple repetitions needed to make sure in the wall stays intact, especially when the players start moving in a direction. Keeping repeating it to the kids, telling them we cannot allow any holes, or penetration in our wall. Tell the kids the if there are open areas, or penetration against our wall, we will leak, allowing for the worst case scenario. The biggest problem is when a defensive opponent rushes into our running backs, stopping them for no gain.

We have a main goal and that is to hold together a compressed moving wall, in a single direction.

A few of the primary advantages of wall blocking include:

Not difficult to instruct It is successful versus any defensive alignment It neutralizes defensive blitzing It works both ways (left and right) It has been successful with every age group It has been successful with every kind of unique skill level It has been successful in making outstanding open areas for the running game

Wall blocking has been and always will be an crucial blocking plan I teach to every player, on every squad I coach. I always instruct this technique early in the season since we will use it all season. I understand the benefits it gives my team no matter which style of offense I am using this season.