During Nathaniel Hackett’s first press conference as the Denver Broncos’ new head coach, he mentioned one concept: outside zone. By doing so, he made it clear his offense will be built around the same underlying philosophy that Mike Shanahan and Gary Kubiak used to lead the franchise to three Super Bowl victories since 1997.
“I think the starting point is outside zone. Outside zone on offense is what you want to do, and you want to base that off of play-pass. You want to make the defense cover the entire field.“
Properly discussing outside zone first requires a rudimentary overview of the fundamental difference between zone and gap blocking.