The fans want the zone block back. Well, three of us at this point. ;)

Then, if McD wants to switch to more of a power OL then he will have the off-season to make the personel moves needed to get bigger and stronger on the interior.

Moving forward. This year is supposed to be a transition year. Right? Plus the Broncos are still winning? Bonus.

I think they are going to use some of the zone block, and phase it out. Should they use a little more of it? Yes.

Do you really think that a new head coach is going to change midseason to mimic a running style that his predecessor made famous? McDaniels is probably going to stay committed to his gaps/power running approach. Considering our OL and their experience, it would make sense to employ a little of it and phase it out slowly when the power running game starts to work more effectively.

I think we all need to relax. Baltimore and Pittsburgh are not the type of opponents you want to go against to gauge the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of your running game.

Precisiontint, you hit the nail right on the head. This is a transition year.

The part where all the town’s guys were trying to tell the coach how to run the team.

I would like to petition the MHR staff (esp HT) to write an MHR University article on the difference between ZB and power blocking. It would sure help my understanding!

the lack of demand for those players led to many good values during the draft and even during free agency. Any type of a strategic advantage is worth considering for retention.

As a former OL, I can say the worst possible thing to do is change a blocking scheme mid season. For a good OL, the blocking and scheme has t be almost instinct, as there are bodies flying around and u have to know exactly what you are doing.

This reminds me of when I played in High School, except the opposite. We were known as a powerful pull and trap team, or for those who know, the Wing-T, and then we tried to switch to zone. It turned out pretty horrible as we had our worst season in school history.

I say we put in Hochstein or Olsen, as they are more power OG’s, while Hamilton’s more of a zone OG.

Is that the best D against it is a zone blitz, and that is actually becoming a very popular play, so to do that might not be the best idea.

In McD we Trust!!!!!!!!!

until Harris went down and we faced 2 of the toughest run-defenses in the NFL. Stick with the plan, it will get better. That’s my 2 cents worth…

is completely due to our offensive line, god bless em, are not built for power formations. We had a problem blocking the Ravens D before Harris went down in the game…and I’ve noticed the disturbing trend of the broncos O line being unable to get 1 yard in the power formation. This has been happening all year. Within the zone blocking scheme you are looking for gaps, and a quick cut through the hole. In a power formation you are trying to out-physical the opposing D line, and quite frankly Weigman and Hamilton are not going to do that to guys who outweigh them by 40 to 50 lbs.

They have used zone blocking at times this year (specifically during the Oakland and Cleveland games) where you pitch backwards to the back and let him cut through the gap quickly.

As I’ve stated before, this won’t solve all the Broncos blocking issues, but it will improve it enough. Also…it would require using Larson and Hillis more….which I’m not sure McD is willing to do at this point.

I see a logical problem with the ZB and (not)-ZB assumption that underlies this topic.

I don’t completely dismiss the idea that there were changes to our blocking scheme that have contributed to our shortcomings in that area of the offense, but it would misleading to attribute our problems to adopting — purportedly — a non-ZB blocking scheme.

Here’s some other factors:

1) a drop-off in performance on the OL
2) regression to the mean (i.e., from last year’s anomalously good performance)
3) newness of the scheme (change = unfamiliarity)
4) last year’s success was in pass blocking for Cutler, the run game wasn’t used much
5) a misfit between personnel and the new scheme
6) changes at RB

I focus on the OL when looking for problems, and there have been numerous posts about Hamilton, as well as some comments on Wiegmann, that depict our problems as performance-related rather than scheme-related. I think that’s a substantial part of the story.

Also, on a related subject — much of the draft analysis here has focused on Interior-OL, primarily Center. My focus — however — has been on Guard, although I’d like to see us address Center, too. I believe it’s hard to change both positions without suffering adverse effects, so I’m for attempting to get one more year out of Wiegmann, as well as using Hamilton at Center and possibly as a backup OL, if possible. I’d like to see a higher pick used on an Interior-OL in the next draft (preferably a suitable Guard), and free agency can’t be ignored for solutions (in tandem with the draft).