Generally speaking, it’s difficult to teach zone concepts to offensive players in the United Kingdom, where I coach. They require a lot of reps to get right, and as we get little practice time, it presents some difficulties.

To better fit this into our limited schedule and following successful coaches both in Europe and the United States, our players instead learn rules, not scenarios. Coaches teach a set of rules and reinforce them over and over again.

Creating some simple rules that the players can apply quickly and on the spot. For the inside zone, our rules are:

• Double team the two interior defensive line (40 front) or two playside defensive line (30 front)
• Help is from playside offensive lineman
• Leave the backside end man on the line of scrimmage

As a group exercise, we draw up the four defensive fronts we see on a regular basis and get offensive linemen to draw up the play against each front. The process we go through is:

Identify the front

Two of middle three players are covered, therefore, it’s a 40 Front.

Identify your numbers

Center identifies his block, and everyone counts out from there.

Identify the double teams

Against a 40 front, we want to double team the two interior linemen.

Identify the end man on the line of scrimmage being ignored

The backside end is to be left as the option guy.

Draw out the double teams

Drawing out the double teams with the numbering system on top shows that they understand the double teams overrule the numbering system.

Finish off the entire play

Obviously, that process seems long and drawn out, and when we first install it, we take our time with it.

We’ll follow this same process for all the other fronts so everyone has a clear understanding of the rules. This gives us the following:

30 front

33 front

40 front

Bear front

Outside zone

We follow a similar process for outside zone. Our rules are:

• Double team the two playside defensive linemen (all fronts)
• Help comes from backside lineman
• Leave the backside end man on the line of scrimmage

Getting the players to draw the plays up going through the same process, we get:

30 front

33 front

40 front

Bear front

These simplifications have allowed us to get zone plays installed in a fraction of the time teams most U.S. have. Our total preseason availability this year was 24 hours spread out across three weekend camps.

By spending less time teaching our players how to read defenses and creating that common language across the team, we had more time to talk, walk and run through these plays before we put the pads on.

Coaching rules, rather than scenarios, will compact your coaching massively and allow players to get more reps at practice, thus getting better at the plays.

Use these simplifications to help your team this preseason.

SEE ALSO: Keep things simple to help build a playbook for parttime players

SEE ALSO: Designing run-pass options around misdirection and series football

Neale McMaster is offensive coordinator for the Ouse Valley Eagles and Assistant offensive line coach for the Great Britain Lions National Programme. Prior to this, Neale was offensive line coach with the Bedfordshire Blue Raiders following a nine-year playing career with the East Kilbride Pirates and University of Glasgow. McMaster holds a PG masters in civil engineering and management from Heriot-Watt University and currently works as a technical bids manager in the United Kingdom.