(This excerpt is from ‘The View from the O-Line’ by Howard Mudd and Richard Lister)
Building Blocks
Few things tick me off as much as the term skill position. It suggests the only players possessing skill are quarterbacks, receivers, and running backs. What witless jerk coined that label? Had to be someone who didn’t know dirt from wet cement. And certainly someone who never played on the offensive line.
Merriam-Webster defines “skill” as “the ability to do something that comes from training, experience, or practice; dexterity or coordination, especially in the execution of learned physical tasks; a learned power of doing something competently, a developed aptitude or ability.”
Anyone who thinks blocking is simply one player getting his mass in front of another’s is uninformed. It borrows from the martial arts, boxing, and wrestling. Philosophies vary on how to do it. Many good coaches disagree with how I think it should be done. Either way, it sure as hell demands skill.
My good fortune was to have first learned from Coach Stoppert in high school. He was what is known as a “technician.”
A technician emphasizes detail. Things like exactly where you place your feet at the ball’s snap all the way to where you place them at each step. He emphasizes just what to do with your hands, arms, and head position. And of course he teaches you how to achieve leverage on your opponent. The man with the low pads wins. He drilled us on the Crowther sled, a time-tested tool that trains a player to find the right position when engaging an opponent. He was excellent at demonstrating how to perform the drills, something I like to do when teaching.
Coach Stoppert’s breadth of knowledge was incredible. He taught techniques that Tiger Johnson, my first line coach with the 49ers, was teaching when I arrived in San Francisco. I had a very good teacher at a young age. Not everyone is so lucky.
I was good enough that colleges recruited me. Michigan and Michigan State started talking to me when I was a junior. It was a big deal. Both schools made a strong pitch. But Michigan was really down at the time. So I ended up going to Michigan State.
I did well my first season. I started on a very good team. Twenty guys on my freshman team went on to play pro football in the NFL, the AFL, or in Canada. And I learned an early lesson reinforcing that technique trumps size and strength.
We had a guy named Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. We thought of him as junior, though he was actually distinguished from his infamous father by a different middle name.
He was a little guy. Something like 5’9”. But he was tough. Very tough. He had to have gotten that from his old man. I remember a black limousine with suicide doors used to pull up to our practices. Two guys would step out and stand by the car. This other guy would just sit in the back seat and watch us. We assumed it was Jimmy’s father, then in the heyday of his infamous legal fights with Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
One day we ran a drill called the nutcracker. It takes place between two parallel tackling dummies five yards apart. A blocker lines up against a defender. The quarterback hands the ball to a running back, who stays between the dummies. The idea is for the blocker to take out the defender, allowing the back to run through before being tackled.
I played both ways as a linebacker and offensive guard. My turn came up in the drill as the tackler. Hoffa was the blocker. I remember thinking, “Screw this little guy. I’m gonna kick his butt.”
He put me on my back. He stood me right up in the air, drove his feet and knocked me right out of there. He was a helluva a good player. He knew how to use leverage. It wins every time, even against a bigger, stronger opponent.
For most, their first real technical foundation is laid in college. In high school, big players rely on physical superiority to defeat weaker opponents. That isn’t going to work against stronger competition.
Excerpted with permission from View from the O-Line: Football According to NFL Offensive Linemen and an Uncommon Coach by Howard Mudd and Richard Lister (Sports Publishing, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, 2016).
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