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The zone blocking scheme(ZBS) requires the entire offense to be on the same page which the Dolphins haven't seem to be on for going on 4 years. Soooo, having nothing better to do I've decided to take an ignorant approach to see WTF is wrong with our ZBS and why we strugle so bad when most other teams running the ZBS have great success.
#1: The Right Linemen- To run a ZBS you need more of a smart athletic lineman than a big powerful guy that's more slow. We have the quick athletic guys now and for a while but not all are technically sound. The O-line needs to work as one unit moving as a whole from sideline to sideline.
#2: Cohesion- The ability for the O-line to gel and be on the same page has been a disaster for the Dolphins for going on 4 years. Injuries, money, BS feelings getting hurt, coaches, and plain bad players have kept the O-line in flux. Having cohesion is essensial to the ZBS as the O-linemen need to know the tendencies of others so they know where to push the D-linemen to so one of the O-linemen can disengauge and move on to the second level.
#3: The Second Level- The O-line is not getting to the second level. There is one decision an O-lineman has to make and that's I'm I covered or uncovered. When an offensive lineman is covered, he just blocks the guy in front of him. If he's uncovered, he doubles up with the teammate next to him (to the play-side) to help him block his guy. Once he feels his teammate has his opponent under control, he breaks off and heads downfield to block LBs and Safteys. Miami doesn't do this very well.
#4: The Backside- Miami doesn't do a good job of sealing off the backside of the plays. The best way to do this is with cut blocks which are still legal. Lots of times "Lazor" will send a TE from the play side all the way across to block a chaser from the backside and whiff on the block. When not cut blocking the O-lineman struggle turning the D-lineman to make a hole for the RB to run up the middle if he so chooses.
#5: The Backfield- You don't need the best RB to be good in a ZBS but you need a smart one-cut runner who has good vision. The RB must make a decision based off of what the D gives him before he recieves the ball and do or die by that decision of cutting up or bouncing outside. The QBs role is more important when running bootlegs and rollouts which is a strength of Tannehills and we all have said we need to run these plays more but these plays will have just as much benefit in the running game as well as these plays will give the RB a little head start and set up play actions. The bootleg is a huge part of the ZBS as this holds the backside safety for a split second, which keeps him from crashing down on the run play. We NEED to run more of these plays which brings me to the next problem.
#6: Coaching- Play calling is one thing but at the core of the ZBS the coaches have failed. The coaches going on four years has not gotten the best out of the players. How do you get a bunch of overgrown children to put their egos to bed and listen to you? That's the challenge NFL coaches have been dealing with while trying to hold the attention of 20-something-year-old millionaires for decades, and doing so is even more difficult when you're trying to get them to grip a zone-blocking scheme, which requires a tremendous amount of focus, hard work and discipline to master. It isn't easy to teach eight or nine guys to work in unison, period, but several teams now and coaches of the past have found a way to do it and we have not.
I copied some things from these two articles to save time which are both good reads and are really in depth on the ZBS.
#1: The Right Linemen- To run a ZBS you need more of a smart athletic lineman than a big powerful guy that's more slow. We have the quick athletic guys now and for a while but not all are technically sound. The O-line needs to work as one unit moving as a whole from sideline to sideline.
#2: Cohesion- The ability for the O-line to gel and be on the same page has been a disaster for the Dolphins for going on 4 years. Injuries, money, BS feelings getting hurt, coaches, and plain bad players have kept the O-line in flux. Having cohesion is essensial to the ZBS as the O-linemen need to know the tendencies of others so they know where to push the D-linemen to so one of the O-linemen can disengauge and move on to the second level.
#3: The Second Level- The O-line is not getting to the second level. There is one decision an O-lineman has to make and that's I'm I covered or uncovered. When an offensive lineman is covered, he just blocks the guy in front of him. If he's uncovered, he doubles up with the teammate next to him (to the play-side) to help him block his guy. Once he feels his teammate has his opponent under control, he breaks off and heads downfield to block LBs and Safteys. Miami doesn't do this very well.
#4: The Backside- Miami doesn't do a good job of sealing off the backside of the plays. The best way to do this is with cut blocks which are still legal. Lots of times "Lazor" will send a TE from the play side all the way across to block a chaser from the backside and whiff on the block. When not cut blocking the O-lineman struggle turning the D-lineman to make a hole for the RB to run up the middle if he so chooses.
#5: The Backfield- You don't need the best RB to be good in a ZBS but you need a smart one-cut runner who has good vision. The RB must make a decision based off of what the D gives him before he recieves the ball and do or die by that decision of cutting up or bouncing outside. The QBs role is more important when running bootlegs and rollouts which is a strength of Tannehills and we all have said we need to run these plays more but these plays will have just as much benefit in the running game as well as these plays will give the RB a little head start and set up play actions. The bootleg is a huge part of the ZBS as this holds the backside safety for a split second, which keeps him from crashing down on the run play. We NEED to run more of these plays which brings me to the next problem.
#6: Coaching- Play calling is one thing but at the core of the ZBS the coaches have failed. The coaches going on four years has not gotten the best out of the players. How do you get a bunch of overgrown children to put their egos to bed and listen to you? That's the challenge NFL coaches have been dealing with while trying to hold the attention of 20-something-year-old millionaires for decades, and doing so is even more difficult when you're trying to get them to grip a zone-blocking scheme, which requires a tremendous amount of focus, hard work and discipline to master. It isn't easy to teach eight or nine guys to work in unison, period, but several teams now and coaches of the past have found a way to do it and we have not.
I copied some things from these two articles to save time which are both good reads and are really in depth on the ZBS.
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