The Beginner's Guide to Rushing the Passer
The first of a series of pieces focusing on the trenches and what to look for when you watch the offensive and defensive lines.
Within all sports lies a measure of artistry.
In football, we have the privilege to witness perfectly sculpted trick plays, the drama of last-second kicks, and more.
Among the greatest arts on the gridiron, we have the pass rush.
Yes, as a former defensive lineman, I am biased. I get it.
But really, watching a bullrush, a swim move, or a spin makes me giddy. Plus quarterbacks all deserved to be sacked - those guys are pampered more than anyone else on the field.
With that in mind, I thought I’d set out to give a quick crash course on rushing the passer.
Pass Rush Theory
As with any class, we start with the theory. First, as any defensive line coach worth his salt will tell you, you have to earn the right to rush the passer by stopping the run.
As a defensive lineman, rushing the passer is secondary to your assignments in the run game. For the sake of simplicity, we are going to skip over the run game in this guide and get straight to the obvious passing downs.
Some basic rules here:
The greater the distance to the first down marker and the closer to fourth down the offense gets, the more the offensive playcalling trends toward passing
Each defensive lineman has an assigned pass rush lane, failure to stay in your lane allows the quarterback to escape the pocket
Even if it’s an obvious passing down, you still need to be prepared for the draw play or the screen - there’s no such thing as a free lunch
Circling back to the second rule, it’s important to know that rushing the passer is a team game. Getting those lovely sack statistics doesn’t just depend on your own efforts - it’s also dependent on the secondary being solid in coverage and your fellow defensive linemen maintaining pass rush lane integrity. If all of these factors are in place, then we can get to the quarterback.
The Three Pass Rush Disciplines
In the world of rushing the passer, there are plenty of moves to choose from. Every great pass rusher tends to have at least two moves. Their “A” move and a counter built off of that move. What that “A” move is depends on body type, ability, and more. Of course, what move a pass rusher uses is also predicated by what type of set the offensive line offers as well as the ability of the quarterback to scramble, and more.
We’ll save the deep dives of pass rushing scenarios for a later blog. For now, I’ve divided up pass rushing into three families of moves. In reality, the best moves blend a bit of all three but it’s easiest to break them up by style.
The oversimplified way to describe the moves: Power, Speed, Technical
Power
The power moves are as straightforward as they sound. The classic bull rush just involves getting center of mass and under the pad level of the offensive lineman. It works best when the OL is light on their feet and not anchored.
Another example of a power move is the long arm. It’s similar to the bull rush but instead of going with both hands, the pass rusher uses one arm to get under the OL with a forceful stab and keeps the other hand free.
Speed
The true speed rush depends on the ability of a defensive lineman to get off the ball as well as their ability to bend around the corner. The most basic of speed rushes is the classic dip and rip. Simply beating the OL to a spot, dropping below their bad level, and ripping your arm up to get past the protection to the QB.
However, most times the rip is accompanied by a hand fighting technique to keep the OL’s hands away from your body. This can be a chop like the video example above where the inside hand of the rusher knocks the upfield hand (upfield meaning side furthest from line of scrimmage) of the OL down before ripping through.
The rip could also be paired with a club. In the club rip, the outside hand of the pass rusher pins the upfield arm of the OL before finishing with the same rip of the inside arm.
Technical
Again, this is really an oversimplification as most of the moves in this third family are paired with either power or speed to be fully executed but the “technical” moves feature a bit more set up or involvement.
For example, the spin move usually involves getting an offensive lineman to overset with a speed rush. As they try to recover, the pass rusher has the opportunity to spin back inside.
The swim move can be dangerous as it usually raises the pad level of the pass rusher but can allow the pass rusher to pull themselves by the OL by punching over the top of the pads.
For the extremely quickhanded, the hand scissors paired with a speed rip can completely eliminate an OL’s hands from the equation. Think of it as a two-handed chop, instead of a one-handed chop.
Finishing the Rush
When you do beat your man in the pass rush, as an edge defender your target is the upfield shoulder of the quarterback. If you target the downfield shoulder (the shoulder closest to the line), you give the quarterback the opportunity to spin out of the sack and break contain.
Remember how I talked about the team aspect of rushing the passer? In a perfect scenario, your interior rushers collapse the pocket and the edges contain the QB. The quarterback has nowhere to go and has to eat a sack.
However, if an interior rusher is out of their lane or if an edge gets washed inside, that’s another opportunity for the QB to escape. You go from a huge play for the defense to a huge play for the offense in the blink of an eye, especially as modern QBs seem to be more and more mobile.
Of course, even a QB with questionable speed can hurt you if you don’t maintain those rush lanes.
Hopefully, you found this quick pass rushing guide helpful!
I’m thinking of doing more basic X’s and O’s content so if you enjoyed this let me know.
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With any luck, you’ll see some great pass rushing examples in today’s NFL games.