Tools of the Trade: Six-Man Slide Pass Protection (Half and Full Slide Protections)

I figured I  would stay on the OL kick I am on and talk about the next progression in pass protection, the 6-man protection. This is typically the protection you will see for the majority of pass plays in a game. The nice thing about a 6-man protection is it is good for multiple types of passing and gives you a sound way to protect your QB.

Slide protection works in the same light as zone blocking, where you are responsible for a gap or zone, not a man. The zone/gap responsibility helps pick up stunts or blitzes that the defense will try to throw at your pass protection. The key is to keep the shoulders square, take your steps, and take what comes into your gap.

The technique that you use on Slide protection depends on what position you play. If you are a Tackle to the call side, you will usually kick one step wide and start to vertical set. You do not want to get too wide and leave a lane for a blitzer to run through. The Guard and Center will kick one step to the call side, but will limit their vertical set due to them being right in front of QB. If the back side Guard is uncovered, he will post set and become part of the slide. He wants to post set because if a defender slants/blitzes his way, his backside foot is back and ready to wall off to the backside of the formation. Again, do not want to vertical set too much with that post set because you are right in front of the QB. We are vertical setting on the slide because of all the possible stunts/blitzes that side may have to pick up, so we want space and time to see the defense play out its scheme and react to it.

So what about the back side of a Half Slide protection? It is Man protection with the RB filling the open gaps, inside out. If the backside Guard is covered, he will be man on with whatever defender is covering him. He will either post/vert set a defender head up or inside, or kick and vert set an outside shade. The backside Tackle is always be man on and will block the defender covering him. He will post/vert set an inside shade defender on him, head up defender on him, or if a 2 tech /3 tech defender is on the Guard. He will post/vert on a 2tech /3 tech side because of stunts/blitz pick up and passing off of defenders. If he has an outside shade and no 2 tech / 3 tech, he will just kick set to take the End. The RB will fill in the gaps backside, looking up any LBs looking to blitz. If no blitz, the RB will help the BSG or BST with their blocks.

If you are doing a full slide, the call side does what I discussed above, but now the backside Guard and Tackle are both post setting with minimal vertical setting. The RB will now come off of the BST's butt and take whatever shows on the edge (an End or LB). A full slide is great against heavy stunt/blitzing teams, but you need to trust your RB blocking anyone on the defense and sometimes the blocking can not hold up long as long as Half-Slide (more quick game, then 5-7 step drop back passing).

I am going to follow a similar format like the Empty Pass Protection article, with showing the protection against a 3-man front, 4-man front, then finally a 5-man front.

Also, I am going to explain everything first as a Half-Slide protection (Slide call side, Man backside), but show at the end how the Full-Slide protection fits in against each front.

3-Man Fronts

The first thing that with an odd man front, the BSG will be become part of the slide since he will be uncovered. You will have 4 guys making a wall with the slide. The BSG will help seal the nose with the Center and the Tackle will be making sure the OLB or Safety isn't coming on a blitz off the edge. The RB back is stepping up checking ILB to OLB to any Safety.

With the 3-4, you should be pick up any stunt/blitz to the slide side, but the issue is on the backside. Because you only have a Tackle and a RB versus an End and 2 LBs, they could send 1 extra defender that we cannot block. That is where built in hot routes and game planning comes into play.

With a 3-3, you will be able to block the box defenders no problem. The CST and CSG have the stack to the call side, the C and BSG have the stack in the middle, and the BST and RB has the back side stack. The problem is that there is no one to take the safeties off the edge if they blitz as well. If they blitz, but the OLB doesn't, we are fine. If that happens to the call side, the Guard takes the End and the Tackle takes the Safety. If it happens backside, the Tackle will stay with his man (the End) and the RB will work himself out to get the safety. It is when the interior 6 blitz and they bring a safety as a 7th blitzer. Again, hot routes and game planning is vital for a team that shows that willingness to bring 7 on a play.

If you want a full slide for the quick game passing or you want a "gap" call if the blitzing gets heavy, this is what you will end up with. There is really nothing wrong with running full slide for any pass play, but the key question you have to ask yourself is "Do I trust my RB blocking a DL?" I have had RBs in the past that could do that, so I ran full slide protection a lot because our guys had trouble with Man protection. It really comes down to personnel.

4-Man Fronts

This is where your backside man protection is going to be critical. Most times with a 4 man front, your BSG and BST will have to man protection. You get all kinds of stunts and blitzes to that side to try to confuse the protection. If you have not figured it out, most defenses are going to try to overload the man side of the Half-Slide protection or away from the slide on a Full-Slide protection.

With the 4-3 defense, the OLBs will be wide against a spread formation like a 2x2 set. You get a 5 man box with potentially 2 edge blitzers. Other formations will allow an OLB to come back into the box, so one LB is responsible for A gap and the other is responsible for the B gap on the other side.

The problem area with this defense is if they send the OLB to the 3 tech side and the Mike. It doesn't matter if the slide is sent to that side or not, that OLB will be an overload to that side, so a hot route needs to be built in or other game planning must be done to minimize his ability to blitz.

Another issue to address is the 3/5 tech side of the 4-3 because of their ability to stunt so easily. If the slide is sent to them, then its not as much of an issue because the slide does a good job of picking up stunts. It is a problem when its to the man protection side because the Guard and Tackle have to vert set to get on the same level to work the twist stunts and pass off their guys.

When going against a 4-2/4-4 defense, the same issues the 4-3 presented are present with this style of 4-man front. You will get either a 3/1(2i) tech with the DTs or stacked DTs/LBs in 2 techs. You will have OLBs/Safeties on either edge of the front. We have enough people to block the box defenders, but if either OLB or Safety blitzes, we are outnumbered. Once again, a hot route or game plan must be in place to take care of this situation.

With the T-E stunt, the Guard and Tackle must post/vert set to get in position to take on the stunt. Once the Tackle realizes the End is twisting, he must find the DT and smash into him. That should bump the Guard off of the DT and into the path of twisting DE. I tell my guys who has a looper/twister to find the next DL and smash into him and bump your man into the looper/twister. So that could be any OL that has to smash and bump, like Centers with Guards or Guards with Tackles.

You can also Full-Slide protect vs a 4-man front, but be aware of your RB probably having to block a DE on the edge. If the DE is a stud pass rusher, that is probably not a good choice.

5-Man Fronts

Really? A 5-man front? Yes, I will always cover this because I saw it in a game I coached in and the Ohio State Buckeyes got beat by it when Virginia Tech used it against them. We are looking at a Double Eagle/Bear front designed to take away the run game and pressure you. 

To block this with just 6 guys, you are going to have to Full-Slide the protection and hope you can take up 2 guys with one block because of how jammed in the DL is. If you want to make sure you go everyone covered, you have to bring in a TE or H-back to help block. That is something you could do with any of these defenses if the team is bringing 7 every play. Just have him in the backfield to fill with the RB or have him on the line and become part of a Full-Slide.

There is the basics of a 6-Man Slide Protection. There are definitely ways to beat this protection, but the key is to know what a defense has to do to beat it and game plan to punish them if they try to do that. This is a solid option for the bulk of your passing and gives you plenty of protection to get the passing game done.

Hope you enjoyed the read and the next OL topic will probably be Sprint Out protection.