Holistic Approach to Protecting the Passer – Dan Gonzalez, Football Consultant, Former HS/College Coach

On today’s episode, from our archives, long-time coach at both the high school and college levels as well as offense consultant Dan Gonzalez discusses taking a holistic approach to protecting the passer.

Too often, protection is seen as the responsibility of the offensive line, or the line and quarterback, but this discussion highlights that protecting the passer is not only a shared responsibility of all position groups, but it is a key focus of the coaching staff as well. Every facet of the offensive plan, from protection principles, to route design, to formations should have the idea of protection as a key consideration.

The information boom in the last three years put every great idea in front of us. There are Twitter accounts with thousands of followers liking and retweeting new ideas. The adaptation of new ideas and concepts as well as the creativity of coaches has skyrocketed.

As coaches, we have to consciously fight what Bodie Reeder, UNI offensive coordinator, calls the “YouTube install” meaning that you see a great idea that was successful and have the naivety to think “We can do this,” and it gets into your playbook or game plan. The idea may be great and has worked, but that is the surface level of what really goes into coaching football. There is much more that we dig into in this conversation in regard to the passing game.

In addition, defenses now present so many looks that you have to have a system of protection in which the entire offense has a strong understanding not only of the routes they run, but the timing and the protection that are tied together tightly.

Bringing all of it together in how your players and coaches think about it gives you a better chance for success and for keeping the quarterback, who most offenses are built around, both healthy and performing at a high level.

There are so many ideas in this episode that make for great reflection and study before you put your passing game on the field this fall, and we share our top Winning Edge takeaways and ideas for implementation after the interview.

Show Notes:

• A.C.T.S.
• Applying the progressive passing system
• Scan read with quarterback
• A holistic approach to pass protection
• Assessing collisions in football
• Examples of proper protection schemes
• Hot routes and simulated pressures
• Protection adjustments and delays
• Systemizing terminology
• Scripting for protecting the passer
• Game planning in practice
• Formation disadvantages
• Preparing for blitz pickup
• Simplifying terminology
• Dan’s progressive passing system

Follow Dan Gonzalez on Twitter @Dan_Gonzalez16.

Coach Gonzalez's Resources on CoachTube:

Protecting the Passer: https://bit.ly/3owNKMy

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