I apologize for derailing this Tre Mason thread into a football technical skills thread, but I thought that JW would appreciate a little description of a Zone Blocking Scheme.

 

Teams that zone block can go one of two ways; they either block their targetted player no matter what, or they react to what the Defense is doing after the first few moments of a play starting and take whomever is in their area / zone. Regardless of which approach they take, they need to target their man to block at the beginning of the play and the simplest way to do that is to count. But, as number line theory goes, you can't math unless you have a starting spot, known as zero. This is where the "Mike" call comes in.

 








I don't know if the diagram above is going to be clear enough, but I'll try and talk through it some. Before the snap, the team identifies who the Mike is on the Defense, and each player counts "out" from him. This can be done either by the Center or the QB, depending on the team's preference. After the call is made, the players on the Offense's right count the defenders from left to right, and the ones on the left count right to left. In football terms, this is known as Inside Out, since the side of the player where the ball is located is considered "inside". Each player is designated a "numbered" defender to block and that's where they head at the beginning of the play.

 

The rules / assignments for the blockers are really simple; The Center blocks "zero", the Guards block "one", Tackles block "two" and the Tight End or blocking Back or whomever else will block "three". Referencing the diagram, for a play run to the right, the Center would block the Mike, the Right Guard would block the Defensive Tackle and the Right Tackle will take the Sam (S). The Defensive End is left for another blocker to take. The Left Guard also takes the DT to his side, and the Left Tackle takes Will.

 

It's important to note that this is only the foundation of ZBS, and things can get a lot more complex than this. Teams can mix ZBS with normal gap control from side to side and lots of other variations.

 

Again, sorry to derail the thread, but I thought this might help a bit.

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