How can the legendary Howard Mudd help Smith’s development in year 2?"

/>Skip to main contentclockmenumore-arrownoyesHorizontal - WhiteStampede Bluean Indianapolis Colts communityLog In or Sign UpLog InSign UpFanpostsFanshotsColtsShopAboutMastheadCommunity GuidelinesStubHubMoreAll 322 blogs on Horizontal - WhiteFanposts Fanshots Colts StoriesScheduleRosterStatsYahoo Colts NewsYahoo Colts Team PageYahoo Colts ReportYahoo Colts Depth ChartYahoo Colts TransactionsYahoo Colts PhotosShop About Masthead Community Guidelines StubHub ✕Filed under:NFL GeneralColts AnalysisScouting The NFLThe “Mudd Technique” and how it impacts Braden SmithNew T.Y. Hilton Jersey ,25commentsHow can the legendary Howard Mudd help Smith’s development in year 2?EDTShareTweetShareShareThe “Mudd Technique” and how it impacts Braden SmithPhoto by Tom Pidgeon/Getty ImagesThe Colts shocked many in the football world when they decided to move on from offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo this offseason. The Colts had one of the best offensive lines in football under DeGuglielmo as they gave up the least amount of sacks in the league with a line that consisted of two rookies. He played a big part in the team’s success but Frank Reich wanted a more experienced and technical coach going forward.After a long and anticipated search, the Colts decided to bring in Chris Strausser from Denver. Strausser has 31 years of coaching offensive line under his belt and has worked with many pro prospects in his long career. On top of adding Strausser, Ballard and Reich were able to convince legendary coach Howard Mudd to come out of retirement and return to the team as a Senior Offensive Assistant. Mudd is one of the godfathers of offensive line play but he has a very unique method when it comes to offensive line technique that should help with the development of this young line. In this piece, we are going to go in depth and look at how the teachings of both Mudd and Strausser can help the development of the young right tackle Braden Smith.The “Mudd Technique”So what is the “Mudd Technique” and why is it different? To get the answers to these questions, I asked Erik Turner— founder of Cover1.net and film analyst for the Athletic— for some insight on Mudd and his teachings. Turner wrote an excellent piece on Washington Offensive Tackle Kaleb McGary on how Mudd— and Chris Strausser— coached him in this unique technique. So what is the biggest difference in this technique from traditional offensive line coaching? According to Turner, the most important aspect of this system is aggressiveness. “He believes in aggressive pass sets. Why wait to start the fight— like typical vertical pass sets—he wants his lineman to jump pass rushers and take the fight to them.” Look at this video here posted by Turner to further explain that aggressive mindset.The other biggest aspect of this technique is the ability to adjust on the fly. “He wants his lineman to be problem solvers, not robots,” noted Turner. “Do whatever it takes to keep the offensive lineman’s body between the rusher and the quarterback.” He prefers his players to be smart but simplistic in what they look to accomplish. Be versatile and nuanced in your technique but understand that the only goal is to keep your quarterback clean no matter what. Again, look at this video posted by Turner to understand how Mudd’s lineman practice this technique. Whether it is an “ass block” or driving players into the ground, Mudd’s philosophy is simple. Keep the quarterback clean no matter what. Expect to see more non-traditional techniques from the Colts this season with aggressive pass sets and more unconventional blocking to reach the overall goal.The Chris Strausser EffectSo Howard Mudd is the Senior Offensive Assistant but Chris Strausser is the offensive line coach. How do his methods differ from Mudd’s? Not much really. When Strausser was the Offensive Line coach at Washington University, Mudd lived nearby and served in an advisory role for the team. Mudd was actually the reference the Colts used when considering to hire Strausser for the offensive line coach job.So there is already a built in relationship between the two. Strausser is an experienced coach in his own right as he has coached offensive line play for 31 years, 28 years at the collegiate level. Once he met and developed a relationship with Mudd though, he quickly began instituting his techniques and teachings in his own style. We saw it earlier with a few of the Washington clips above but what about last season when Strausser was the offensive line coach for the Broncos? Did the “Mudd Technique” show up when he was away from Howard Mudd’s tutelage? The short answer is yes, plenty of these techniques popped up on Broncos film last season.Lets look at Left Tackle Garrett Bolles and how he used these techniques last season. Looking first at his aggressive sets, he utilized this a lot. He attacked talented pass rusher Myles Garrett all game when they faced the Browns and overall had a very solid game while using that technique. Here are a few examples of his aggressive sets in that game:As for the other major point in the “Mudd Technique”, Bolles shows that he knows how to think on the fly and find his block by any means necessary. Look at this next clip as he shows off the patented “ass block” that Mudd talked about earlier in this piece:Although Chris Strausser is the Offensive Line coach for this team, he has been influenced by Howard Mudd in recent years and has adopted many of his teachings and techniques.Impact on Braden SmithSo to this point, we have talked a lot about Howard Mudd and Chris Strausser and their philosophies for offensive lineman. How do those philosophies affect the offensive tackles of the Colts though? Let’s look at one player in particular, Braden Smith. He is a very unique player on the Colts line as he was drafted to play guard before moving to offensive tackle early in the season due to injuries.Smith locked down the starting right tackle spot and became a valuable starter on one of the best offensive lines in football. He should benefit the most though from the teachings of Strausser and Mudd this season, as he had his fair share of struggles in typical vertical pass sets and was at his best when he was aggressive and attacking opposing pass rushers. Let’s look at a few examples:Smith was at his best last season when he could attack. He was an excellent run blocker and his best pass blocking reps came in the play action game. Looking at his run blocking, he is a big and powerful player who is athletic enough to move players whenever he wants to.The core fundamental belief in the “Mudd Technique” is to block in every pass set like it is play action. Be aggressive and attack like you would on a play action play call. Smith attacks on this play action play call and shows that this could be a style that he could play well in. More attacking and less vertical sets could benefit him.Unfortunately for Smith and the Colts last year, they asked him to play more passively and do more vertical sets in his blocking. He still put together a great rookie season but a lot of his struggles came in these sets. His kick step was rather slow and he allowed players to get into his body too often. Look how much he gets pushed back here by the much smaller Dee Ford. The passive vertical set by Smith along with his raw footwork at the position, allows Ford to drive him back into the pocket. You can see how uncomfortable he was last season in these sets and how much he was thinking in his poorer games. When a player is thinking more about his technique rather than protecting the quarterback, that is where mistakes happen. Getting Smith into a more comfortable system where he has to be, as Mudd put it, “a problem solver.” Rather than perfecting a traditional technique, Smith will be able to focus on just the main goal of keeping his quarterback clean.ConclusionThe additions of Chris Strausser and Howard Mudd should really help this offensive line jump from one of the best in the league to perhaps the best in the league. The biggest question mark or player to develop though is Braden Smith at right tackle. A conventional offensive line coach would likely have their hands full with a player like Smith as it is so rare that a player plays tackle in the NFL after rarely playing it in college. Mudd is quite different though.“(Mudd) is not a conventional thinker and he doesn’t want his players to play that way. So his methods can apply to any type of player. What he teaches is unconventional so even the savviest technicians may struggle with what he teaches because its not what they were taught their entire career. He wants his players and coaches to ‘dare to be different.’ He wants his players to think outside of the box.” - TurnerGoing into his second year in the NFL, Smith won’t have to be focusing on perfecting his kick step or polishing his technique as much. He’ll be able to get back to doing what he does best which is attacking on the outside and keeping his quarterback clean. This should be a major aspect in his development and I fully expect him to make a huge leap this upcoming season as a result. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Adam Vinatieri’s weekend preparations have already kicked into full force.He’s working with wet footballs, determining his best footgear and getting ready for another potentially big day in messy weather. It’s become a trademark of the NFL’s best clutch kicker.After 22-plus seasons in the NFL, Vinatieri has figured out how to thrive in pretty much every element: rain Darius Leonard Color Rush Jersey , wind, sleet, snow, ice and mud.So it would be fitting if Vinatieri breaks Morten Andersen’s career record for field goals in a rainy, windy Washington this weekend.“They’re fun in their own way,” Vinatieri said. “I would prefer decent weather and clean games, if you will, but it’s fun sliding around out there and doing that stuff. It makes your job a little more difficult, but whatever the weather is, we’ll be ready to go.”Bet on it.Vinatieri doesn’t spend much time worrying about forecasts because the South Dakota native has produced some of his best work in the worst of times.Nobody will forget the two kicks he made in the Snow Bowl , or “Tuck Rule” game, to help New England beat Oakland in a divisional-round playoff following the 2001 season. It helped the Patriots capture their first Super Bowl.Last year, the oldest player in the league made a seemingly impossible extra point to force overtime in a December blizzard in Buffalo and helped keep the Colts within striking distance just 13 days later in monsoon-like weather in Baltimore.Last week, in the controlled environment of Lucas Oil Stadium, the 45-year-old kicker calmly made 3 of 4 field goals to move within striking distance of Andersen’s career mark (565). Vinatieri is at 562. He’s also 47 points away from breaking Andersen’s career scoring record.“Records are fun to talk about,” said Andersen, who scored 2,544 points in 25 NFL seasons. “Do they define you as a player? I don’t think so. But they can motivate you. I think Adam is more like me, he’s in the now and he wants to win, but he’s earned the right to celebrate it.”Technically, Vinatieri already has more field goals than Andersen, who finished with 583 including playoff games. Vinatieri is the NFL’s postseason record holder for scoring (234) and field goals (56); he has 618 counting the postseason, including two Super Bowl winners in the final minute.But his favorite kicks don’t even show up in the league’s official count.“Obviously, none of the playoff ones count in these, but the most memorable are those when it’s the playoffs and games are on the line and seasons are holding by a string,” Vinatieri said. “So yeah, I would say the Super Bowl, those two, and the one in the Snow Bowl game. Those are probably my top three if I had to rank them.”Along the way, Vinatieri has been surrounded by some of the biggest and best names in football history.He’s played for two Super Bowl-winning https://www.coltsfanshop.com/Denzelle-Good-Jersey , Hall of Fame coaches in Bill Parcells and Tony Dungy, and a third, Bill Belichick, who seems like a shoo-in to make it when his career ends.He’s played with two of the league’s greatest quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, and a third, Andrew Luck, who just might join the list one day.He’s won four Super Bowl rings, was the only unanimous selection on the Super Bowl 50 Golden Team, and has participated in a league-record 225 victories.And he still remembers asking Andersen, one of only two full-time kickers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, about the secret to his long, successful career. Whatever Andersen told him certainly stuck with Vinatieri, who has been around longer than a growing number of teammates remember.“I’m the second oldest guy in the locker room and my first year of playing football was his second year in the league,” said right guard Matt Slauson, who turned 32 in February. “So he’s not only had one incredible career, he’s essentially had two incredible careers with two different teams. It’s amazing.”Strangely, though, if Vinatieri does break the field goals record this weekend or this month, he’s likely to do it with two unfamiliar names assisting: long snapper Luke Rhodes and punter/holder Rigoberto Sanchez. Both are in their second seasons with the Colts. Rhodes was 4 years old when Vinatieri was a rookie in 1996, while Sanchez was 2.“You grow up watching him and then especially for me, I wasn’t even in this position two years ago,” Rhodes said. “I’m lucky and blessed to be where I am and pretty excited when the day comes he gets to break the record.”But neither has a choreographed script for a celebration. They’d rather let Vinatieri handle that part on his own — especially if it comes in a muddy mess this weekend.“For me, it’s more about an accumulation of a lot of years of work,” Vinatieri said. “Can I remember every kick? No. But you add them all together, and I won’t reminisce on any of that stuff until long after it’s all done and over, if it happens. I will appreciate all the guys that came before me and set those records so high, and to be able to play long enough to get close to them is pretty special.”