Developing Linemen: A Collaboreth Effort

[Reginald Rutledge]

One thing that I have learned in my 48 years of living is to know that I don't have all the answers. I don't always have to win. It's not that important to me. What is important is knowing how to use my knowledge to do the best I can and collaborate with guys with like thoughts to make something better.

One of the great things about all the late night chat sessions and customizing sessions with coaches is that you learn things or create things that is of beneficial to not only him, but you too. No stealing of ideas to see later online as someone else's inventions but a mutual piece of work that has been agreed upon to be used.

I always talk about the athlete defined as the player plus the base. I truly believe you can not have one without the other. That's just my opinion. Last weekend, my good friend and I, Jim Davis did a little brainstorming. We took a little of his potion for creating bases and a little of my potion for creating linemen and concocted something special.

Since I believe in the "Fred Sanford" principles of junk, I took the shell of my FF.COM rookie bases (never released) and did some "tinkering" to create another method of line play.

It was beautiful. When Michael Robertson can only speak negatively of it in a joking manner, you know he wants it. When guys want to study your team and you play them and they have no clue on how to stop the line play, it's just a matter of time.

Jim and I did countless test showing how these athletic linemen could become very dominate in the game. All the principles of leverage were shown as linemen would get under the chin of the defensive player or onto the shoulder pads and minimize their strength, often times pushing them back for some distance. It was just another one of those nice scientific studies done after hours between two friends who brought something to the table.

Reg