Raising Heck: Defending Bull Rushes and Hump Moves
Looking at Andy Heck's preferred methods for defending power moves.
Up until now in the Raising Heck series, we’ve covered the ideal scenarios for Andy Heck’s offensive line play. The goal — as it is in all things football — is to execute the plan effectively and ideally rep after rep. That’s why Heck and Andy Reid spend so much time drilling footwork, positioning, and striking with their offensive linemen in OTA’s, minicamps, and training camp.
However — as it also is in all things football — ideal situations are rarely achieved. Every element of the play could be appropriately prepared for and executed well, but the opposition will still find a way to make the situation less-than-ideal. A famous quote by former Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator Tom Moore about why Peyton Manning’s backups didn’t get more snaps comes to mind: “Fellas, if 18 goes down we're f***ed, and we don't practice f***ed.”. That quote doesn’t apply to offensive line play, because they are constantly in disadvantaged positions. So Heck and other offensive line coaches around the league — to borrow the phrase — “practice f***ed”.
Today, we’ll take a look at two of those disadvantaged positions that Heck trains his offensive linemen to recover from: the Bull Rush and the Hump Move.