O-Line Tips: How to Create the Perfect Stance

One thing you don't want as an offensive lineman is wasted motion. Yes. So if I got to come out of my stance, lift my head up, bring my shoulders back, and then go hit— Yeah. The defensive guy's already into you.

Meanwhile, that defensive player's just up the field.

Up the field.

Get into what we commonly see as a bad stance for young offensive line athletes. So you're going to see the round in the back. Head's going to be down. Shoulders are going to be forward. So once again, as you mentioned, you can't see anything.

Can't see anything.

That's the big problem. Number 2, if he comes out of his stance, the first thing you have to do is rise up. Rise up. And then with that round in the back, he's not gonna be able to be as powerful as he needs to be. The poor element of this in terms of your performance, you're gonna have to rise up. If you go back down, it's gonna be the same thing with your shoulders, but also you're gonna be in a position where you're gonna be falling forward because of where your shoulders are as well. So as Coach Orlando said, we don't wanna be in these 2 positions. And most importantly, you gotta see what you hit. So therefore, we don't want you here with your head down. So we look at traditionally how a stance is built. This is what we've been taught. We've all been taught this.

Right.

Get shoulder-width apart, feet shoulder-width apart. Now I want you to squat down like you're sitting on the toilet and then put your hand down in the grass and kind of play with the grass. This is traditional. This is how I was raised. It's how you were raised.

Absolutely.

But the game is evolving. And since that game is— since the game is evolving, we have to evolve how we build out stances. Because what's unique about a stance to me, Orlando, is it's like a customized suit. My stance is gonna be different than yours.

Yeah.

But in all seriousness, you're only about an inch taller than me, so your legs are gonna be a little bit wider. Right, yeah. Your shoulders are broader than mine. So if I tell you to get shoulder width apart, and then you get into that position, and I tell you to squat now with those long legs, it's probably not gonna be an ideal position for you. Absolutely. It may work for him.

Right.

It may or may not work for me.

Right.

It just depends on how I feel in the morning, 'cause some days I'm 6'5".

Yeah.

Some days I'm 6'4", some days I'm 6'2". It just depends how I feel.

And when you look at offensive linemen now, you can almost see, you could go across the line and everybody's stance is almost different.

Right.

I've seen guys that play, you know, Randall McDaniel, who had the kickstand out a little bit. So guys all have different stances where they start, but that's really the base of, you know, obviously good posture and everybody's a little different.

So let's build out a truly functional stance based on Orlando's 3 points of proper posture. Number 1, head's gonna be up. Shoulders are gonna be pulled back. We gotta get rid of that round in your back. So the first thing we're gonna have the young athlete do is find a position of stability. We want you to be stable, number one. And sometimes, Orlando, I believe that stability is gonna be found a bit outside of the shoulders. 'Cause once again, some kids are gonna have broader shoulders, some kids got more narrow shoulders. They have to find a position of stability that's unique to them. So now we're gonna say, "Left guard or right guard, which one you wanna be?" All right, we're gonna go right. So we're gonna find strength in this right leg.

Right?

You feel strong right there? You sure you feel strong right there? Let me test it a little bit. So I come on over here and I push on you a little bit. Feel stable and strong? Good.

Nice.

Now the key thing with this position right here, Orlando, like we said, somebody like Randall McDaniel, he's way out here. You were more tucked in like that. But everybody's gonna be different. In that position, which is why we have to let the athlete decide what's best for them. What are your thoughts on that so far?

No, I totally agree with you. Like you said, everybody has their different version of whatever that those steps are, and it's really fitting to the size of the person, the athletic, the bend in their body, how athletic they can be. And number one, can you move out of that stance? Bingo. That's the key. Yeah, I can get, I can get in a comfortable stance, but I got to be able to make that, that first step.

Yes.

And be powerful with it. So So I think that's the key, getting the stance that you feel comfortable with, that you're strong in, and then obviously that you can move in is number 2.

That's key. But with that said, we got our stability, we got our strength, right? Now we gotta set the torso. We gotta set the torso. But Orlando, before we set the torso, this is a common mistake I see with a lot of young players. When they get down, they aren't square in the stance. Yeah, yeah. So if you turn around so we can get a back view. From the camera. Now go ahead, find your stability, find your strength. If he were to just get down right now into a stance, and let's just say we got the line of scrimmage coming across here, he's not gonna be square.

Yep.

Every time I've watched you play, you've always been square to the line of scrimmage.

I see, Keith.

So how I kinda show kids how to do it, push the pocket forward. Boom. Once he pushes that pocket forward, now he's square on the hips.

Yep.

So at this point, what you're gonna have me do is, Squeeze your shoulder blades back, because like Orlando said, we got to make sure this part is tight. You're going to lock your arms, keep them pinned to the thighs, and we're going to slide on down. Slide on down. Boom. Now, Orlando, what are your thoughts on this in terms of his torso?

Oh, wow.

You like it?

It's perfect, man. Strong. He looks like he's set. He has a great base. Looks good.

Looks good?

Looks good.

So now we want to take this same posture and throw it to a 3-point stance. Go through your stance setup, find your stability. Let's find your strength. We got that. Let's set the torso. Make sure your shoulders are pulled back. We're sliding down. Boom. Right about there. If you want to go to a 3-point stance, all you're going to do, put hand on the ground. Feel good about this?

Absolutely.

So far so good, right?

So far so good.

The key element is here. If you notice with the young athlete, the wrist should cup the knee. There shouldn't be any air in that area. And that's gonna be perfect for each athlete relative to their height, arm length, leg length. Now commonly what happens is this. Lock that in. If you keep going lower, what happens is we start to get a break right here. We don't want that break. That begins to show us that our athlete is gonna be too low in their stances.

One thing I wanted to talk about, I hope we didn't miss. The pressure on your hands in the 3-point stance. How do you guys coach it at a young— you see some guys at a very young age when you know it's run blocking, all weight is on hands, right? And then you see guys when there's pass block, there's a little lighter.

Good example.

So let's give an example of that just because, you know, obviously you don't want to tell what you're going to do.

Right.

You want to be balanced in both run and pass.

We would assume this is the pass.

Yes, absolutely. Okay.

So now show us what you would switch, how you would switch it up if it was not a run. Well, yeah, you know better, but do it like most kids would do it.

Right. Yeah. So once you get up to high school and you get up to college, kids will see, "Oh no, it's a run, run." You'll hear the linebackers yelling out because you're telling, you're giving it away in your stance. So as offensive linemen, there's a couple of things we can't do. We want our stance and our posture to be great, but we don't want to tell the defense what we're doing.

Correct.

You know, obviously, because that makes your job harder. If they know it's a pass, then they're going to cut. They'll give you their best move. So I think you wanna disguise what play it is or whether it's a pass or run as much as you can in your stance.

So you gotta work on this.

You gotta work on it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

It takes time to master this. And as you said, even being a Hall of Famer, one of the greatest to ever do it, even in your career, you were still working on that.

Absolutely. And I think—

At the high school level, most definitely.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So let's recap these 3 points. Number 1, we gotta keep the head up. Yep. We gotta get them shoulder blades pulled back. We gotta get the round out of the back. You have to be comfortable enough as an athlete to be able to move out of this position. And I think something you said that the kids really, and coaches, need to really understand is this: Stance is a skill. They have to work it. Today, who do you see in the game that's doing a great job at the left tackle position with the stance?

Wow. Wow. When you see Trent Williams, he's a guy who's really athletic, but he gets down in his stance. He has a really good posture and he always, you know, he can move well from his stance. So I always look at guys like that. And just being athletic and being able to move his 2-point, 3-point stance. Tyron Smith.

Yeah.

The left tackle, Tyron Smith.

Everybody on the offensive line nearly does everything right.

Yeah. So you could almost tell who does, who has good coaching out there too. You look at their offensive line. But Smith does a really good job in Dallas. Just everything he does is fundamentally sound. And it really starts from his stance, his base, and he's real technical in how he plays the game.

From the ground up.

From the ground up.

When you build football players.

Absolutely, yep.