Reach Block Fundamentals

Welcome back to O-Line TV. Today we're talking about reach blocks. Why? Because reach blocks are a staple in everyone's offense. This is a fundamental block that every O-line athlete should understand how to approach and really how to finish it. So we're going to take a look at that today. I have Josh, he's going to be my defender. Taylor, he's going to be my O-line athlete, mainly in a right kind of guard or right tackle stance. And today we're not really focused on the scheme, we're just focusing on reaching this particular defender that has outside leverage on us first and foremost. So let's take a look at body position and the objective of a reach block first and foremost. So as you can see, just get set, right? Imagine Taylor is a right guard, Josh is a 3 technique, and in the beginning position, Josh has outside leverage. What we want to do is somehow, some way, take this player and put him in a position at pressure to pressure where the body position switch and now he has outside leverage on a defender. But how do we go about that? All right, let's first and foremost, let's take a look at the angle. Okay, the first angle, okay, well, angles out the gate. So we want a 45-degree angle, right? And I know that's controversial. Some coaches or some players may want to kind of stay square to the line of scrimmage because that's what we're hearing a lot. That's kind of what I'm seeing and that's what we're going to take a look at today. You want a 45-degree angle, and that angle is going to look like this. So Taylor, I want you to get your hips on this angle. I want you to take a 45-degree angle, and I want you to drive off that back foot and really begin to own that angle. Don't worry about aiming point right now. I just want you to take an angle that you think would give you outside leverage. Ready? Set, go. Good. Bring it on back. If you notice, he was able to do that in one drive catch, right? So within one drive catch, you're able to maintain that acceleration. This is really what I'm focusing on, on that 45-degree angle. If we're not owning one angle and we try to own two angles, we lose acceleration. And that's not what we want. And that's what we're kind of seeing. So what you'll see sometimes is coaches tell their players, "Hey, I want you to stay square to the line of scrimmage while trying to reach this particular defender." So Taylor, that's exactly what I want you to do. I want you to stay square and then try to get vertical and reach this defender. Ready? Set, go. As you can see, he gets pushed back into the line of scrimmage. Why? Because he's trying to own two angles. So you lose acceleration. We don't want to stay square in the run game. What we want to do ultimately is this. We want to drive force and we want to put those hips on an angle directed at where the defender is, right? We want to direct our hips to where that contact is. If we're trying to keep our hips square to the line of scrimmage, we're not going to be able to fight pressure to pressure. And we got to own two angles, therefore we lose acceleration. That's why we want a 45-degree angle. Think about it. If we're going directly right and directly north, what's the perfect compromise, fellas? 45-degree angle, right? And it kind of varies. So that's the angle we want. Now let's get to the aiming point. The aiming point we want is this. We want Taylor to drive his body, right, drive his near hip past the far hip of the defender, right? Because if we do that, that's going to put us on the appropriate leverage angle to earn outside leverage. So Taylor, I want you to drive and catch yourself and just stop in that position. Also, you got to first, you got to anticipate where this defender is going to go because he's not going to stay still. I want you to drive your near hip past his far hip. Ready? Say go. Good. Look at that body position. As you can see, he's on an appropriate leverage angle to own outside leverage because he's driving that near hip past that far hip. Now you'll hear coaches sometimes say, "Hey, I want you to throw your hat. I want to get your hat across." Right? "I want to get your hat to his outside shoulder." Right? Number one, we don't want to do that because it's dangerous. Number one, we don't want to talk about anything with the head. But what happens is we leave our hips behind us. Right? And we know that we block people with our hips. It doesn't matter which angle we're taking. We block defenders with our hips. So if I tell him to get his head across, let's just go to that— let's see what that first position looks out of that first drive. Ready? Set, go. If you look, his hips are behind, right? That— his near hip is not past that far hip. So let's give our players cues that are going to make them move their body position. Remember that body position we talked about at the beginning? By me telling him to drive that hip, OK, past that far hip, we change his body position immediately. Ready? Set, go. Good. Very good. Now, last but not least, here at Ola Performance, we always talk about owning angles. And owning angles kind of becomes a high expectation for players because sometimes you drive to that first 45-degree angle and you don't get what you want out the gate. Maybe you're short. What do we do now? Hey guys, let's do that. Let's bring that to life real quick. So Taylor, don't worry about the aiming point, but we still want a 45-degree angle. Josh, you do what you're going to do and make sure that you're short and let's stop right there. Ready? Set, go. Good. So in this position, a lot of times players are short and what do they do? They want to make up for it. So they try to scoot. Ah, that's not what we want. I know we're trying to get outside leverage, but you got to be content. You got to live with the angle that you're on. So if you find yourself in this position, right, obviously this is not the position we want to be in, but if you find yourself in this position, hey, now you just got to drive the defender. And we're trying to just what? Establish more line of scrimmage. Fight beyond the line of scrimmage. Something good will happen. But bring it on back. Let's say we do drive when we get to that position where that near hip is past the far hip. Ready, set, go. So we've gotten the goal we wanted. Now we just got to own that angle and continue to own that angle. And because we've owned that angle, Because we've knocked out, you know, we've knocked that out of the park, that outside leverage that we wanted on the defender, now we just begin to fight pressure through him. So if he changes his angle, ready guys, let's say that defender tries to go inside, he changes his angle, driving to him. Let's say he does what we anticipate, he keeps trying to go outside, we keep driving through him. Okay, so that's how we own our angle and that's practically what it looks like. So when it comes to reach blocks, hey, remember, we don't want to stay square to the line of scrimmage. Right? We want to drive our hips to where the pressure is going to be. Welcome back. Our actionable language today is going to talk about pockets. We talked about the aiming point. Near hip, past the far hip. Get to that position, Taylor. Ready, set, go. Good. Hips are moving. Pockets are moving. Now what we want to do is drive our near pocket through his far pocket. So stay in his pockets. So if he's going outside, stay in his pocket. Stay in his pocket. Going inside. Stay in his pocket. So, gotta get in them pockets. That's what we gotta do. That's our actionable language for today.