Broncos all in on zone blocking run scheme

‘Running the ball is the No. 1 thing to be able to help yourself’

Broncos right tackle Calvin Anderson needed a whiteboard and a marker.

Anderson had just been asked about the team’s new zone blocking run scheme that will debut Monday night in Seattle. The Broncos’ months-long preparation — learning the new techniques, the new angles, the new everything — was nearly matched by requests to explain the basics of how it worked.

Standing in the team’s indoor practice facility, Anderson turned to his left and started fake drawing on a padded wall.

“Philosophically, the idea is running off the ball and you have a track,” he said, moving his hand along the wall. “If everybody is running in unison on the tracks, you have these diagonal lines and the running back can see the lanes better because we’re moving in unison. The running back can say, ‘Hole. Boom.’”

The Broncos’ new running game can be boiled down to those two words. The offensive line, now tasked with blocking an area, creates the hole by pushing their defender out of the way. Running backs Javonte Williams and Melvin Gordon run laterally until they see the crease develop and, boom, they turn up the field.

Amid an offseason of change within the Broncos’ organization, coach Nathaniel Hackett’s blockingscheme shift may be one of the most critical if the offense is to break its six-year scoring malaise. As the running game goes, so will the offense.

“Running the ball is the No. 1 thing to be able to help yourself, help protect the quarterback, take shots down the field and do all of the things we can want to accomplish,” Hackett said.

Boiled down, the offense uses the zone blocking scheme to create creases and also get the defense on its heels, exposing them to the downfield pass. Defenses find the scheme challenging because it requires discipline among the outside linebackers.

“It gives you so many angles to block and I like the fact it marries up with the pass game and you can work the play-action attack,” Broncos general manager George Paton said.

Man blocking is as simple as it sounds. On the play call, each lineman has a specifically assigned defender to block at the snap. Zone blocking is similarly easy to explain — the linemen blocking an area and whatever defender enters that space.

In his 2010 book, “Blood, Sweat and Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook,” Tim Layden used one of his 22 chapters on the zone blocking scheme.

“In zone blocking schemes, offensive linemen attempt to use the speed and pursuit of the defense against itself,” Layden wrote. “Each offensive lineman, instead of firing forward and blocking the defender directly in front of him, slides in one direction together with the others. … In an outside zone scheme, as the defenders chase the play, the offensive linemen use that momentum to carry them farther outside … which opens running lanes.”

A widely held belief is late Broncos offensive line coach Alex Gibbs, brought to Denver by coach Mike Shanahan in 1995 for a second tour with the franchise, is the unofficial godfather of zone blocking (Hackett cited Gibbs during training camp). But Layden quoted former NFL offensive line and head coach Jim Hanifan as saying zone blocking has been around for “50 years or more.”

Timelines aside, the Shanahan Coaching Tree produced a resurgence in the zone blocking scheme. Current head coaches who worked for Mike are his son/ San Francisco coach Kyle, Green Bay’s Matt Lafleur, Miami’s Mike Mcdaniel and the Los Angeles Rams’ Sean Mcvay. In turn, Cincinnati coach Zac Taylor worked for Mcvay and Hackett worked for Lafleur the past three years.

What are the benefits of running a scheme predicated on a mash of footwork, power, agility and communication? Two answers were the most common.

First, it allows for running backs to select a crease … and they could have more than one option.

“Outside zone is just running the ball and making the cuts,” Williams said. “I feel like people try to make it more complex than it is at times, but it’s still just playing football.”

Second, it sets up the passing game. Forcing defenders to play the run for just a split second while moving laterally will allow quarterback Russell Wilson more time to throw.

“Whenever you’re dealing with an outside zone action, the (defensive) line not only has to step up to fit the run, but now they have to run sideline-to-sideline,” Hackett said. “It’s almost like you give them a twofold area they have to cover. When you add the play (action) that looks just like it, whether you’re (running a bootleg) with Russell or he’s setting up in the pocket, it makes the defense have to step up and go sideways, which voids the zones behind them.

“Get them thinking and guessing. Then you have a chance to get those deep shots behind the defense, which we all love the most.”

The Broncos’ defensive coaches spent all training camp practicing against the zone blocking scheme, which it will face in Week 3 against the 49ers.

Nose tackle D.J. Jones was signed to help defend the run, but it also falls on defensive ends Dre’mont Jones and Deshawn Williams.

“Our biggest thing is to not allow the (offensive linemen) to climb up to our second level,” defensive line coach Marcus Dixon said. “If I’m the three-technique (tackle), I have to make sure the guard does not get to my linebacker. If I’m the nose tackle, I have to make sure the center does not climb to my linebacker.”

After 12 seasons in the NFL, former Broncos Pro Bowl receiver Emmanuel Sanders announced his retirement Wednesday.

Sanders cited his family, his health and last year’s passing of Demaryius Thomas — who was posthumously diagnosed with CTE — as the primary reasons for stepping away from the game and into a new career in the TV booth.

“I’ve got two kids, I’ve got a beautiful wife — I have something that’s bigger than football,” Sanders said. “I want to see my grandkids, see my kids grow old, I want to grow old. Football is tough on the body. I lost a close friend in Demaryius Thomas, and for me it’s about longevity of life now.”

Sanders said he already has a TV gig lined up, but declined to say what network he’ll be going to, as his contract isn’t finalized.

“I had a heck of a career — 12 years, three Super Bowls. I feel like, what else do I have to prove?” he said. “Now, I wake up in the morning and I’m dropping the kids off at school, I’m making sandwiches for my daughter. I see the beauty in that and I’m happy.”

Sanders, 35, caught 28 of his 51 career touchdown passes with Denver. He had 404 catches for 5,361 yards in 78 regular season games in orange and blue, and two Pro Bowl selections.

A third-round pick by the Steelers out of Southern Methodist in 2010, Sanders finishes his career with 704 catches for 9,245 yards in 172 games. The Bellville, Texas, native played his first four seasons in Pittsburgh, where he appeared in 56 games, with 18 starts.

“I came into the league and they said I would be a fourth or fifth receiver,” Sanders recalled. “I’m 5-foot11, I’m 175 (pounds)… But I played with my heart. I was willing to do whatever and put (my body) on the line to try to get a win, to make the crowd roar, to make the plays necessary.”

Sanders’ memorable tenure with the Broncos almost didn’t happen.

As a free agent in March 2014, Sanders was at the Chiefs’ facility, minutes from signing with Kansas City. But a last-minute call from then-gm John Elway while Sanders sat in negotiations — he wanted a threeyear deal, and K.C. wanted to sign him for four years — changed the receiver’s plans, and his career trajectory. Sanders signed with Denver instead.

“I was just trying to get out of there so I could go really celebrate because I’m about to play with Peyton Freaking Manning, The Sheriff,” Sanders said. “I was trying to leave, and (Kansas City coach) Andy Reid’s car came flying up to me. He goes, ‘What is going on!?’”

Reid thought it was a done deal.

“That is how close it was to me signing with the Chiefs. But I ended up coming here, which was the best thing ever.”