Pocket blocking is mostly used at the higher levels of football. Very few youth football teams can successfully pocket block. The concept here is for the offensive lineman to push and block the defenders towards the sidelines. The goal of the offensive line is to form a tunnel for the quarterback to stand in while reading the defense. As the defenders penetrate and the blocking begins to collapse, the quarterback is to step straight forward into this “pocket” of defenders. The Pocket Blocking scheme is used to counter the aggressive defensive line pass rush.
In youth football there is not a lot of time to teach the schemes need to form a pocket. Furthermore, most youth football defenses are set up to defend the outside running plays. The youth passing game consists of a pattern or two and not a lot of complicated routes. The quarterbacks are not making more than one read while the pass protection is usually not very long.
Many youth football teams like to roll the quarterback on a sprint out during most passing plays. This is a very smart thing to do as it gives the passer the pass or run option, which is very difficult to defend. Just ask the NFL, where the wildcat formation has revolutionized the game.
Pocket Blocking is too difficult to teach the youth football players and I believe there are much better ways to block the opposing teams. I will review many of these schemes in a different article, but these schemes include
- Wall
- Zone
- Railroad
My favorite to teach the very young players is the Wall blocking scheme. It is very simple and effective with all ages.
