3 Slant Techniques for Your Defensive Line

There are at least 3 ways to slant. I’ll focus on the 3 ways that I’ve taught in the past, anyway.

I had never considered teaching all three, in one season. Might have done it on accident. Just never on purpose.

Each style has it’s own purpose. So let’s get started.

Normal Slant or slanting to a ‘shade’. I started teaching this a couple years ago.

We used the 3-4 Defense primarily as a change-up front from the base 4-2-5 Defense. When we slanted, we just wanted to disguise the front. We were still slanting back to our base 4-2-5 Defense look most of the time. (note: we also slant in the 40 front from double 2’s, head up on the Guards)

To accomplish that, the defensive lineman lines up head up on the blocker. On the snap, he takes a 45 degree step in the direction of his slant, taking him to a shade on the lineman.

I’ve taught a strike point with the hands in the past. But I found a violent rip, more like an upper cut, through the shade of the blocker worked best. It gets them attacking up the field, handling contact with the blocker.

Don’t avoid contact. Take it if it’s there. That helps keep him from getting washing.

And if there’s no contact – you know to look inside. Something’s coming!

Usually the only time there is no contact is when the defender is slanting outside (away from the ball), and the blocker blocks down. Kick-out’s coming.

Gap Slant is for penetrating into the gap. Even after we started teaching the Normal slant, the gap slant was still important.

Linemen have to know down and distance. Tendency.

When’s the right time to get into a pass rush?

On 3rd & long, there’s no reason for a Normal Slant. It’s a pass. Avoid contact and get to the Quarterback.
It’s safe to assume that if you’re slanting on a 3rd down situation, you think your guys are pretty quick. And not strong enough to pass rush from a shade.

Gap Slants are good in blitzing situations as well. He needs to avoid contact with the Offensive Lineman to avoid clogging the gap a Linebacker is blitzing into.

Photo by K.M. Klemencic from Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

Hard Slants require the most planning. You need a tendency here. Usually field, or boundary tendencies. Or a surface tendency like a slanting in the direction of a Jet Sweeper.

The reason they take more thought, is the risk.

A hard slant means slanting at the next man. A 4-tech Defensive End, lined up head up on the Left Tackle, slants inside trying to get to the hip (we teach the near knee) of the next down lineman, the Guard.

If the guard comes to him, he’s attacking hard. We’ve even taught him to cross-face on a block to.

If the Guard blocks away, he’s chasing down the line looking to spill any kick outs or chase down the run away from him.

The risk is in getting washed by a good Offensive Line. Particularly on a play like the Outside Zone.

Not something you can hang your hat on every snap, but with the right scouting you can use the Hard Slant to your advantage, too.

While I’ve taught all three techniques, the base is the Normal Slant. That puts your defenders in the best place more often.

A Glazier Clinic talk by Clint Jenkins, Defensive Coordinator at Dacula High School (GA) helped me to get all this sorted out in my mind. Really good football coach.

As you’re putting your Defensive Line technique manual together, consider using all 3 slant techniques this season.