Sets and Strikes

STRIKE FIRST - STRIKE HARD - NO MERCY. As an 80’s baby who grew up in the 90’s I loved the Karate Kid. Donovan and I couldn’t think of a better phrase to embody winning in the trenches as an offensive lineman in pass protection. Entrenched in my mind is my college coaching preaching the importance of getting meaningful first touch in the pass game; and how more often than not, the player who does will usually win the rep. In fact over 13 years later as a coach it still can be heard on our practice field to our players. However, 13 years in the game has led to a lot of changes in technique and better understanding of the human body, leverage, and how to win against today’s elite pass rushers. For most of my career I taught the way I learned through Wu-Tang hands and double punches. But watch some of Larry Johnson’s drill tapes, or what your defensive line is coaching, or even better, watch some reps where your offensive lineman were beat. Two years ago I knew I had to evolve and be better.  So, I started a journey to transition to independent hands, and rewire the way I coach the strike part of pass sets. Sets & Strikes is designed to give you the drills and strategies you could begin to implement right now this off season with your players. Donovan White and I have poured our experiences as college offensive lineman, coaches, and countless clinic notes to bring you some of the very best drills that fit winning with your set and hands.

Strike Drills

Time and facility space can be a great challenge for our team in the off season. One thing we try to do to combat that is quickly incorporate some strike work into the end of our workouts when we don’t have the time or space for a full Indy session. The difference strike machine is a great tool that can be used right in your weight room or indoor facility. In the drills below we work a series of different tunch punches because at times you are still going to utilize a double hand punch. Our Tunch Punch series is: straight a head, high-low, alternating corners, 1-2-3-4 spots around the world, and single hand strikes. We usually do this for anywhere from 15-20 seconds. It is important that you make sure your players stay in a good pass pro demeanor and body position. Another critical coaching point is keeping the body calm, and not tying your head to your hands. Lastly, monitor players strikes to ensure they are punching correctly and with enough force vs. simply rushing through. We then mix in some set to the spots, as well as redirect drills with the difference.

Med balls, pads, tape landmarks on gym crash pads, and tennis balls can all be great tools to change up the target and training the coordination of “The Strike.” Make a punch line down the gym wall, steal the tennis balls from your WR’s, use med balls to time the jam or strike. Get creative and mix it up!  Players love variety, and the variety of different targets will improve your players coordination, visualizing the target, and placing the strike.

Mini band strikes are a great drill to work independent hands in the off season. We use this drill to add a little resistance and work both our sets and strikes. We like to incorporate this drill during weight room time/small group Indy to get good work in a short amount of time. We can set up an entire series of stations this way between this and the difference machine. Our players work both the high and low hand to both the outside set, as well as redirecting for the counter.

Hand Carriage

Wu-Tang Hands / Two Handed Punch

As I mentioned before the classic hands up and ready; or “Tunch Punch” was the classic way I was trained to carry my hands in pass protection as a player. For years this is what I also coached.  Within the last five years we started to refer to it as your Wu-Tang hands (after the Wu-Tang Clan logo) to give players a visualization of how we wanted their hands to be. We emphasized carrying our hands somewhere between our belly button and mid chest wherever a player was most comfortable. We wanted elbows inside, thumbs up, and hands light in space, but heavy on contact. Don’t get me wrong this way still works and it’s not a “wrong method.” However, today’s pass rushers have become more athletic and elite with their hands than ever before. Coach your players through pass setting vs. the likes of Jonathan Cooper, Jack Sawyer, and Zach Harrison and it became clear just how explosive and dangerous the high level HS defensive lineman are.  The problem with the double hand punch is 1. Many times our players hands were up and painting a clear target for DL to work off of/hand fight, and 2. If we missed with our initial strike, then we missed and recovering from that was near impossible.  This is what led to my philosophical change upfront and the pursuit to better develop our offensive lineman for today’s game. 

Independent Hands

One of our biggest transitions currently upfront is in changing our hand carriage away from the Wu-Tang hands to the independent hand carriage. I must admit when you watch many of our drills you’ll see we have just started and need to continue to break the muscle memory. With independent hands we want our lineman to carry their hands near hip level, elbows tight to ribs, and their wrists flexed, and even with elbows. Our hands will be separate and ready to work. There are alot of similar principles as before such as carrying our hands light in space for example. The idea behind independent hands is we will better be able to defend against all of today’s pass rush moves and better protect (shield) our own chest. In fact credit to Scott Woster who said: “A lineman's hands are both his Sword & Shield.” With independent hands we will work to strike the closest target to us we can, and focus on anchoring the defender to win the set. Many coaches are starting to prefer this hand carriage because there is a lot of carry over from the run game to the jump and short sets. In essence, the “stab & grab” or striking low to high applies, allowing a coach to be more efficient with his time with reduced techniques to drill. The major advantage of independent hands is it allows the offensive lineman to hand fight better. If a defensive lineman gets a move on one hand; he doesn’t get it on both as before, and now the offensive player is in a better position to win the play.. Getting first touch is still a point of emphasis, and lineman will concentrate on different strike points such as; point-peck, or inside & high logo area.

Set Drills

We love spending a lot of our early off season and summer time just perfecting our ability to bend and move our body in a good demeanor. Every year we go back to basics and build from the ground up. Even during the season we will sprinkle some very basic EDD’s into our individual or use to overemphasize mistakes we are seeing.  From a pass protection perspective that means learning how to sit in a good staggered position, maintain leverage, how to properly carry the hands, and how to win the set with our feet. Below are just a few of our favorite pass set specific drills and then we follow up with working redirects later.

Kick over the line is a small but effective drill we teach at snapping into a good pass pro demeanor, but more importantly getting our kick foot into the correct position of the ankle outside the knee. Our players will line up with their kick foot inside the line and look to snap the first step down and just over the line into a good stagger. Years ago at the Nike Combine I watched a college coach do the same drill, but over exaggerated a really big kick to simulate getting your body into the kick slide quickly.

Single leg drive step is designed to isolate the post foot and let your players feel the drive off the inside foot into their pass set. Many coaches have probably seen this same idea used when teaching the outside zone play for drilling the man reach. Start with your players outside leg knee down and on the ball. We like to work three kick slides or drives, and come to a pause in a good body position. Anytime we ask our layers to come to a pause it's because we want to see that they are staying square & balanced. Their body will give them feedback as to where they are distributing their weight in their kick set. Many players will shift their weight back into their heels or outside foot which makes it hard for them to redirect or stop the bull rush. You will see this by players falling back at the end or rocking back forward.

Anytime we can incorporate something offensive line specific into agility drills we will. This makes for great pre practice drills or early pre-season work. We like to use agility type drills to get our players warmed up, or to improve athleticism within our unit.

I recently watched a great clinic with Scott Wooster, now the Head Football Coach at Grand Valley State University. He had three golden rules of pass protection and the first is Winning the Set with your feet. In this video you will see our players work setting to the spot vs. the different shades they may encounter. We talk about angles and points of intersection with our players. We also preach staying square for as long as possible and maintaining and inside-out leverage. This helps take away getting lost in space and giving the more athletic defensive lineman we usually face a two way go. In this drill players will “Win the Set” by setting to the correct spot on the defender. We work tight shades, wide techniques, and inside shades. In this drill we are more emphasizing the set and lower body. Coaching points should focus on keeping the outside leg down the crotch of the defender, to inside the outside knee at the widest. On the inside shade we want to step laterally and get to square and even on the defender.

The next evolution of “Win the Set'' is we work all three pass sets together at the same time. We tell the player who is the defender to mix it up and he has the choice of the order.

When we talk about steps and movement with our kids we still use the classic terms of your “post” foot and your “kick” foot. When we talk about lateral movements we talk about “pushing” and “posting.” In this video I wanted to show some of the different ways we work the lateral push & post kick movements. We use PVC pipes to help our players feel staying square and keeping a big chest. Other times we will have our players carry their hands behind their back. We will also have our kids carry their hands in space and we will hand fight with them so they can feel what it is like to carry their hands light in space, but heavy on contact. Many young players will tense up and be too rigid. This causes their body to dip and fall when their arms are swatted. We want our players to feel wiping the hand back to a safe space and being able to move the body independently. Much of what I know is credited to Doug Geiser at Ashland University, and over a decade later I still use some of the very same drills he used.

Med Ball Set is a good variation to the kick slide and settle stuff from other drills on this tape. The Med Ball is a great tool to force players to stay tight through their core and square. As with earlier drills we want players to pass set under control, with the correct weight distribution. Players should be able to time the strike and settle when they throw the ball.

In PVC set to the spot we are working on the same core idea as “Win The Set.” We want our players to focus hard on keeping their hips square for as long as possible. We also want them to focus on splitting the defender with their outside knee, and keeping a good inside-out relationship. In this drill players will start with the PVC pipe in their outside hand and simulate placing the high hand to the logo area of the defender. We will use three different tempos: 1. Walk, 2. Jog, and then 3. Full sprint off the ball.

Set on an angle drill is a good drill to simulate short setting or working the kick slide. This drill is great for getting your players used to working in rhythm and space. In this drill the player gets a little too wide, and would like to see them keep that inside out relationship and not overset. The player does a good job with his strike and stacking his hands.

Directional Changes

Another agility type drill where we work offensive line movements into the drill. Players sprint to the coach and break down in a good pass pro demeanor. The coach will then give different movement patterns to have the player: push, post, kick slide, work forward, vertical set, or sprint and get out

“PVC Redirects” is a drill variation we use off of our kick slide redirect drill. In this drill players will kick slide to their kick foot and redirect to their post foot. We use the PVC pipe behind the back to help the players feel staying square in their set and keeping the big chest-big butt demeanor. We always finish the drill coming to an anchor position so coaches and players can see if the OL is setting and finishing balanced in his weight and body position.

In “PVC Set (High-Low) Hands” we are woking the same core lower body principles of the pass set as PVC Redirect. The change up is now we are carrying the pipe in front of our body and simulating a high and low hand strike. We swap the high low action to simulate placing the hands on an inside counter.

In this redirect drill, players will work both setting to an inside shade first, and then setting to an outside shade first. We mix up the strike portion of the drill by using both hand shields and or tennis balls/med balls for different targets.

“Raider Drill” is like the Offensive Line version of Simon Says. You will set up the drill to create a curved punch line of five bags around the offensive player. The coach will then call out a series of numbers and that is the order in which the offensive player will pass set and strike (Example: 2-4-3-5-1). This is just another way to work players pushing or posting, or kick sliding & redirecting along a movement pattern.

Med Ball Redirect combines Med Ball Set with working an inside counter and a different strike target to finish the drill. This is a good drill to focus on the offensive lineman's core stability as they work their pass set. For younger players you may have to use a lighter med ball.

2 vs. 1 Bag Redirect is a mirror dodge variation. In this drill the offensive player will work his pass set and redirect flat for the inside counter or twist action. In a zigzag motion the player will keep working his pass set and work a strike on the defender. Another great drill to mix in the anchor and finish. We want the player to be flat on his step as he redirects back inside, not working forward. The offensive linemen should be staying square throughout the drill and watch for good hand carriage (correct them if not, or if they are dropping their hands).

3 vs. 1 Redirect is a great drill to get your offensive lineman setting off the spot, getting used to working in space, and being in rhythm on their strikes. We like to use this drill as one of the foundations for beginning to work setting the defensive twists, and blocking second level defenders when they blitz. As a coach I always tell the first defender which direction to go, and the next player goes opposite, and the final defender simulates a blitzing LB. Key coaching points are to focus on snapping off the defender, maintaining good body posture, and positioning on the defender. In college, Coach Geiser used to teach us a double uppercut through the blitzing LB. In this drill tape, Jeremy does a great job getting his center of gravity down and using his hips to anchor the defender and hold his ground.

Conclusion

This project was a lot of fun to create. I want to thank Coach White for bringing his expertise, and helping create this project for other coaches. I also want to thank all of the past and present players who helped make this possible. We hope you are able to take something from “Sets & Strikes,” and make you and your players better this season. This is our first major project for “The Lab” . We would love some feedback on what you think of the material, and what you want to see next?  If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to Donovan or myself, and we would be happy to go into further details!