Actionable Language for Outside Zone

Welcome to Actionable Language. I'm LeCharles Bentley. I'm joined by CJ Davis and Mr. Brian Massinen. Now, what's actionable language? Actionable language is the type of language that we want to use in tomorrow's game starting today, obviously. It's going to achieve two things. Number one, remove the helmet as a teaching point and/or a coaching cue and allow our players, number two, to be more in a proper posture more consistently, which is then going to build confidence because they're going to be in a position to play with more power, strength, and stability. So relative to outside zone, we commonly hear the coaching cue of getting the head across. Well, there's two problems with that. Number one, it's not protective because it's exposing the neck and head to contact, which we don't want to see. And then number two, it's not proper posture because what ends up happening is you can coach me to get the head across and I can establish hat placement, so to speak, but my hips and feet are behind me, thus I'm not in a position of stability and strength, which is why you often see players that are coached to get the hat across end up back in the backfield with the running back. So I'll give you a quick example of what that looks like relative to more actionable language you can use in outside zone. So CJ here is going to be our guard, Brian's going to be our defensive lineman, and what we're going to have now is CJ just taking the approach of getting the hat across. So here you go. Boom. He's now established what you're looking for in terms of your coaching cue, which is he's gotten the head across. But if you notice, the neck, head area is now exposed. That's not what we're looking for because it's not protective. From a performance standpoint, the hips and feet are behind him. He's not in proper posture. And as big and strong as C.J. Davis is, once you make contact, He's not in a position of strength and stability. So how do you coach it? Well, we believe that coaching the inside shoulder to drive through the target is a more effective method because it's going to achieve two things. Number one, protect players. And number two, put them in proper posture. So now CJ is going to take this inside shoulder He's going to take it through, let's just say outside zone, you want it to be outside shoulder. It could be armpit, it could be the logo, it can be here, it's whatever you want. But right now we're going to go outside shoulder. So CJ, drive your inside shoulder through the defender's outside shoulder. Boom. At this point in time, CJ's had to do one thing for sure, he's got to apply more force. But even still, he hasn't quite exactly got to where he needs to be. So in the athlete's mind, they know they have to keep moving. The worst thing you can do is have an athlete end up at a target, achieve the target, but then stop. With the inside shoulder, CJ now understands he has to keep taking his body through the contact point. And from a protection standpoint, what he's done is Kind of get back to that position, fellas. Right there. He's now created a buffer between the neck and head because the shoulder pads are doing what shoulder pads are supposed to do, which is now protect our athletes. So by switching from non-protective language, such as getting the head across, we've even heard getting the inside screws, the defender's outside screws, and anything relative to the helmet. You don't want to coach above the collarbone. So with that said, outside zone now becomes inside shoulder driving through whatever target it is that you're looking for. It's going to achieve, achieve two things. Number one, create a bit of a barrier between the neck and head by focusing more on the shoulder contact at the point of contact. And then secondarily, it's going to keep your players in proper posture. The feet and hips are going to be more in line, and now they understand that they have to keep driving through that target, thus you get more vertical push. I don't mean vertical in the sense of going directly upfield. Vertical means at the point of contact, they continue to drive through that point of contact. Try it out, coaches. I'm quite sure that you and your players will be pleased with this. First and foremost, it's going to be more protective, and then secondarily, from a performance standpoint, you will get what you want, which is better performance and Players, you'll be better. Check it out.