I helped coach one of my players and also one of my good friends during this past Football season. He would struggle here and there during practice on his stance, pass blocking, and on pulling plays. So I helped him out by coaching him on what he needs to improve and make him become a better athlete on the field. The first Project- Stance Since our offensive is a "no huddle" offensive and spread, the best stance for our left and right tackle should stay in a 2pt stance. The reason why is because it is better for them to kick in a passing situation. A two point stance has the offensive lineman in a stance where the fingers are not touching the ground. Neither are the player's hands to rest on the knees as this is often an indication of fatigue. The hands should be slightly extended in front of the body, palms down, fingers flexing, elbows tight to the body, knees bent, and slightly bent over at the waist. Weight should be centered on the whole of the foot or slightly shifted toward the balls of the feet, but never on the heels. What john was doing wrong was putting his head down, and not have having a wide enough base. A player could not block someone with his down and cannot run out of stance if his base is to narrow. So every day before any workout we did after practice, we work on his stance. After helping him every day with his stance, he improved and started to look like a professional in his stance.
The second Project-Pass blocking During practices john would struggle at pass blocking because he was not kicking back the right way fast enough. So we did a couple of drills for him to improve on. One of the drill I like to use that is very helpful for an offensive tackle, it is a cone drill that is shape of a Christmas tree. There is a total of five cones, one on the top and four in the back. The top cone has to be in the center, and the four cones in the back have to be 3-5 feet away from each other. The focus on this drill is to kick back and step inside just in case a defensive of linemen drill to rip inside. After doing this drill, john started to improve every day. Then we did a contest called “one on one” it is a drill for offensive/defensive lineman that go against each other. The focus for the offensive lineman is for him them not to give up a sack. The focus for the defensive lineman is for them to do any kind of moves to get to the quarterback.
The third project-Pulling For offensive lineman it is important to be able to pull when it comes to a run play or play action. Every offensive and include myself love to pull because you get to show how dominate of an athlete you are. In the beginning of the season john did not know how to pull and his technique was not there. So I explain to him what he had to do. A pull play is a quick pull from the backside to playside of a formation, but can also be a totally-onside G-block. The backside trapper (john) going from the left to right pushes hard off his left foot and his down fingertips, then jerks his inside elbow back to force his hips open. This pivot turn is called a handshake move, because it will look like he's offering his right hand. His inside foot should be pointed in the same direction as that handshake. So we did a drill him to do so he could improve his speed and technique. We just gather two cone and separated it about 5-10 feet away, so he has visual of where his opponent going to be at. John has to outside of the left cone, so he knows where his inside foot has to be at. Then he has to focus on his technique while is he sprint to the other cone. After that we went full speed, and it was perfect technique on his part. In the picture on the left, john is the T that is pulling to number 5.