Crab Blocking the Ultimate Equalizer in Youth Football

Crab Blocking is a must for offensive linemen in Youth Football. It is something we teach all of our offensive linemen to do and do very well, we take great pride in it. We use it to fill in the gaps of pulling linemen, as well as a tactic against dominating defensive linemen. This block allows even the smallest and weakest of your offensive linemen to neutralize even the best defender in youth football.

Crab blocking also goes by the word, scramble block and is cousin to the cut or shoeshine block.

Unlike the cut or shoeshine block, the crab block for us is just meant as a neutralizer, we are not aiming to take the defender to the ground. It starts with a parallel charge to the line of scrimmage by the offensive linemen, with him tossing his outside arm across his body to the inside, both hands on the ground and butt in the air. With both hands on the ground and the player scurrying on all fours he almost looks like a crab on the beach, hence the name. We ask the crab blocker to keep his feet moving and to move his side into the defender as the defender approaches. In most cases the defender makes a half effort to pass this impassable impediment and is easily neutralized.

Since we are foot to foot on offensive line splits this block rarely has to cover much ground, but every one of our offensive linemen is taught to cover 3 gaps with this very effective block. Our kids take great pride in begin great crab blockers. The entire progression of how we rep it and teach it is covered in Chapter 4 of the book. We often even have our center snap and crab on every snap he does on air in football practice.

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