Reddit reviews Complete Offensive Line

> Why doesn't the o-line power- instead of zone-block? I think they're more physically suited for it but must be missing something.

Our OL coach is Rick Trickett and zone-blocking is his thing. See his book on OL blocking

Easiest place to find all-22 and end zone angles is the coach's film from NFL Gamepass, but it costs a lot of money for the amount of usage you'd get out of it at this point. You can watch the coach's film for any game going back, but it's definitely worth more at the start of the season when you can watch the games after they happen instead of going back and trying to watch all the games at once.

Once you get the coach's film, I think that a good place to start for defensive strategies is Matt Bowen's NFL 101 series on Bleacher Report. Here's his breakdown of how cover 2 man works as an example. Once you go through those, you can start seeing what defensive players are doing and trying to figure out what the general defensive playcall was. You still can't be sure what the playcall was (especially with some hybrid defenses that Zimmer runs or when someone blows a zone), but you can get much more of a feel for what's going on. Coach interviews in season on team websites are also cool. As an example, before Lombardi was fired from the Lions he pointed out in a video on their website that sometimes our blitzer in the double A-gap pressure look is not predetermined. We have a pressure play where both LBs will take a step toward the A gap and read where the center is turning; if the center turns to his left, the LB on his left will drop into coverage and the LB on his right will blitz. If he turns to his right, the LB on his right will drop into cover and the LB on his left will blitz. It's a really cool wrinkle to our defense that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

On offense, especially for the run game, I like old NFL offensive playbooks. Some, like a few of Norv's actually, will give some good detail on the blocking assignments for the offensive line and the keys the HB is supposed to read. You may have to Google some of the terminology for the types of blocks, but that stuff should be out there.

Can also get the Complete Offensive Line by Rick Trickett if you're really crazy, but it adds limited value. Goes more in depth for what he and his system expect for offensive linemen's footwork and hand placement for various types of blocks, but not all techniques are ubiquitous. The book is aimed more to help learn how to coach offensive line and goes through drills to use in practice, so if you just want to watch tape you can probably skip that book.

For pass offense there's lots of stuff online about various route concepts and what they beat (e.g. how the pin route combination beats cover 4) Once you start watching lots of tapes and get a feel for what defensive schemes are trying to do, why the offense is doing what it is doing becomes more obvious (e.g. read man coverage, motion outside receiver to inside the numbers, CB in man plays with inside leverage, WR runs a quick out with the extra space after the motion for a fairly easy completion).

Another great tool is that Belichick will break down important plays for the Patriots every week and explain the important bits. Probably one of the coolest sources you can get on what's going on in a play right there.

There's lots of stuff out there, but I'm personally hesitant to trust anything that isn't coming from an ex-NFL player or coach. There's a lot of people (myself included) that think they know what is going on but are at best spouting educated guesses or parroting things more informed people have said previously.

Hope that was helpful.

Here are a few books I would recommend.

Concept Passing

Quick Passing Game

Offensive Line

R4 Passing System