One of the hardest things for high school linebackers to do is defeat a block. After a lot of thought, I have decided to change the way I teach my linebackers to defeat blocks.

That is not an easy thing to do, but the fact is I haven’t seen many linebackers who could actually defeat a block the way I would like.

The Old Way

The way I used to teach block destruction made great sense on paper. We would attack the shoulder of the blocker, usually a Guard or Tackle, if we were on the ball or gap side of the play. In other words, if the linebacker was already on the right side of the blocker, he could attack the half-man.

1. Step with the inside foot on the crotch of the blocker.
2. Strike with the inside hand or flipper.
3. Drive up through the man, exploding the hips.
4. Step through with the outside hip, rip with the inside arm and leg to get to the hip of the blocker.
5. Get into a good football position preparing to make the tackle or redirect

Once we got to the hip, he should be beaten.

On paper, it works. It should be perfect. In practice, we have only executed it properly a handful of times. That may be a result of my coaching, but the fact is it wasn’t working.

Rip Through

The way I have seen our players defeat a block is to just rip through it. We’ve always taught the rip technique, particularly on pass rush technique. But I have seen it be more effective in defeating run blocking linemen as well.

1. Drop the hips and get below the blocker.
2. Step simultaneously past the blocker’s hip and dip and rip the shoulder. Teach the backers to scrape the ground with their hand and punch the sky. Exaggeration in the teaching is key.
3. Clear the blocker with the rip and bring the outside foot through.
4. Get into a good football position and prepare to make the tackle or redirect.

This isn’t revolutionary, I know. Some of you are probably thinking I’m an idiot. That’s okay. I get it.

This is going to cut down on my teaching time for block destruction, and increase our ability to get past a blocker and make a tackle. There was just too much thought and precision in the way I was teaching it before.

On the Wrong Side

If we’re on the wrong side of the blocker, we’ll still rip it. We’ll either have to undercut the blocker or cross face. That will take some teaching. There’s more of a speed game involved there.

What is important is that we don’t run around the blocker, but instead attack him. Even if we attempt to rip across the face of the blocker, and don’t make it, we can still be effective. Getting low and being aggressive on the blocker should force him back into the running lane, at least a little.

After all, he’s got the angle on us anyway, we deserve to lose the battle. We just have to do our best to get back on the right side with what we know.

Making this change will make our backers more aggressive, have less to think about, and increase practice time we can use on tackling and run fits.

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