A Simple Rule.
If Covered with a Defensive Lineman or walked up LB then block them.
If Uncovered Double Team with with next Offensive Lineman that is to your playside until a defender presses your gap.

If no defender presses your gap then stay on the Double team and get push. While Double Teaming the Down Down Lineman keep Four hands on the Defensive Lineman and Four eyes on the LB.

Also, Alex was a stickler for the RB’s read. In Outside Zone, it is the last down line man, and for Inside Zone it’s the first down line man inside not counting the center. Gibbs made it a point that the RB’s “decision step” of going outside, straightning out, or cutting back be the third step, because this coincides with the O-line’s decision step in their blocking.

By the way, Gibbs is the man! If you can get his lectures, by all means do. That guy swears up a storm. If i may qoute Gibbs – “I don’t care if it’s cover two, three, four, six… F*%K! That reciever gets that safety and the other gets that safety. Make the F#$&ing corner make the tackle.”

It would probably be more accurate to say that when a covered lineman’s backside teammate is uncovered, he knows he will have help and they will team block the down lineman to the LB; if his backside teammate is covered, he knows he will have to block his man solo. As you mentioned, everyone is ‘reach’ or ‘bucket’ stepping to try to get to his man’s outside, so that gets everyone moving sideways.

Actually, if all the lineman are covered, they are still zone blocking. (Another way to think about zone blocking is each lineman steps and is blocking whoever shows up in his playside gap- so stunts are easily handled). Assuming there is no stunting happening, when each O lineman steps and attempts to reach the man in front of him, and the back is looking for a crease that may develop.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the inside zone and the outside zone is the blocking on the backside, where they try to scoop block: uncovered lineman try to overtake the next man to the playside, and covered lineman try to reach and rip past the man on them to get to a LB.

Generally, because his shoulders are more squared to the hole when running the inside zone, the RB is in a better position to see and cut backside than on the outside zone.

Inside Zone
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/6229710/16168375

Outside Zone (Stretch)
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/6229712/16168386

I was first introduced by a fellow coach here in Australia a few months back and enjoy reading every post,

You mention that in the outside zone the o-lineman trys to position his body between the defender and the sideline (to “seal”) the edge, we coach our guys a bit different to that, the aim is not to “seal” but to attack the outside bicep of the defender but maintain position with the backside hand on the middle of the breast plate and drive up field but ensure the o-lineman doesn’t turn back into the centre of the field and ‘seal’, by maintaining this position we hope to acheive a few things:

1. By continuing to drive if the back cuts up outside the defender he is forced to make an arm tackle at best as the o-linman continues to attack the outside bicep and not allowing the defender to position his body correctly to make a sure tackle.

2. If the back cuts back inside the o-lineman has a superior position to not allow the defender to come underneath the block and make a tackle as he maintains as well call ‘stong inside hand’ on the middle of the breast plate.

3. The lineman inside if uncovered himself would attempt to ‘overtake’ the block allowing the outside o-lineman to head up to the second level (although this doesnt end up happening all that much)

But we do coach in line with the next comment, if the defender ‘beats them to the punch’ and gets outside we coach our guys to drive them all the way to the bench.

Like you said, there are a lot of coaching points to this and it vary’s, we do OK with this technique but would love to hear of any others, keep up the great work!( http://www.gcstingrays.com/ )

Just found out about your site today! Simply awesome, man! Going to be spending hours here, that much’s for sure! Sorry to post something entirely irrelevant to the topic, I have a question for you that I hope you will take up, but I don’t know where else to post it. Here it is:

Among other things, I’ve been following Steve Spurrier’s offense for the past few years. He’s been facing persistent problems with his offensive line and pass protection for the past 6-7 years. Also, after Eric Rhett, he seems to not have had major, consistent running production anywhere. What, according to you, are the major problems with his offensive schemes with respect to protecting the passer and opening up running lanes (if there are any)?

“…Power running. You’ve got to be able to run the ball when you go to a three-wide receiver set, and you’ve got to run with power. By that I mean behind zone blocking, which is a big departure from the San Francisco system. Theirs was man-blocking, with a lot of cut-blocks and misdirection. Ours is straight power. Not many people realize this, but if we hadn’t have gotten Marshall (Faulk) we were prepared to go with another excellent zone-blocking runner, Robert Holcombe. It takes a certain type, a guy who can run with power, who’s good at picking his way through.”

(from http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/dr_z/news/1999/10/28/inside_football/)

I don’t tend to think of power running when I think of zone blocking, but perhaps I’m incorrect in this. Any insight you have would be much appreciated.

Thanks!