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O-line finally gets Slater's blocking slant
By Bill Soliday
NAPA — Jackie Slater knows what Robert Gallery and the rest of his Oakland Raider offensive linemen are going through as they adapt to his teachings.
"I went through it myself," Slater said. "I had played three years and had some success. Then we got a new coach that came in and changed my technique. I resisted it early on, (but) once I got on board with it, I started my string of Pro Bowls.
"He was a pretty good line coach. Hudson Houck."
And Slater was a pretty good lineman, good enough to have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Now Gallery is starting his third year, and his new coach, Slater, is, in fact, the fourth line coach he has had to please in four years.
"There are a lot of different things I've been taught," Gallery said in a monumental understatement.
Gallery concedes that sometimes it is harder to unlearn something than it is to learn something new.
"It's tough," he said. "Sometimes it's easy in practice when we are drilling it and zone in on what they want you to do. But when you get under fire in a game, you can sometimes revert to something you know from the past.
"But that's life in the NFL. We're just going to keep working on things they want us to do, get that down, and then I'll be great."
That is Slater's assignment — to make Gallery great. Coach Art Shell, like Slater a Hall of Fame NFL left tackle, challenged Gallery when he said he expected him to be a Pro Bowl left tackle sooner, if not later.
Gallery likes the challenge.
"I put that pressure on myself," he said. "I hold myself to a high standard."
And so does Slater, whose craft derived from the mind of Houck, who is currently line coach in Miami and previously served as a guru with the Cowboys and Rams with stops in Seattle and San Diego. Everywhere he has gone, running backs broke records on a regular basis.
"I am quite demanding about those things because I know they make sense and that they work," Slater said of the Houck approach.
It's fairly simple: The old military concept of fighting to annex real estate.
"We don't want to waste an opportunity to capture ground," Slater said. "We don't want to lose ground to gain position on a guy. We want (it) right away, want the ground the (other) guy is standing on.
"So, if you (used the) drop-step to get position, a lot of times it takes getting used to because you have pretty good balance ... because you come back to parallel. But the problem is, you have to play football on your side of the line of scrimmage, and that's not what we want to do."
That's been a little bit different for the line, he said, but he says the results will come. "We want to be a lead-step, come-off-the-ball, put-our-masks-on-people (team)," Slater added.
The Raiders have made progress. They started slowly, then in Game 3 a light bulb seemed to click on. They rushed for 156 yards and allowed one sack.
In the first two games they had rushed for 175 yards and allowed five sacks in each game. In Game 3 there was also the gratifying absence of false-start penalties — no surprise considering the new order was to advance on the enemy's position off the snap.
While it is true linemen who play the drop-step and set technique get an advantage in getting a better read on a defender's intentions, Slater says "the big argument for using the drop-step is you can gain great position, gain better angles sometimes.
"We're going to be a combination blocking team, a lot of power blocks at the line of scrimmage. Our goal is to get movement, not position, on a guy to cover him up. We want to knock him off the ball."
Slater concedes that a new mind-set does not necessarily result in instant gratification. Can the job be done before the start of the regular season?
"Maybe ... I think so," Slater said. "I'm going to say maybe because we're teaching guys things they haven't been taught before. When I look back on some of the teams I've played on, I can't ever remember where the offense came out and played out of the chute doing the things we wanted to do."
Slater remembered the 1979 Rams he played on. They went 9-7, with the offensive line adjusting to a new coach, Dan Radakovich, who came from Pittsburgh. But they made the playoffs and by then they were very strong, beating the Cowboys to send Roger Staubach into retirement and then Tampa Bay to reach the Super Bowl before losing to the Steelers.
By Bill Soliday
NAPA — Jackie Slater knows what Robert Gallery and the rest of his Oakland Raider offensive linemen are going through as they adapt to his teachings.
"I went through it myself," Slater said. "I had played three years and had some success. Then we got a new coach that came in and changed my technique. I resisted it early on, (but) once I got on board with it, I started my string of Pro Bowls.
"He was a pretty good line coach. Hudson Houck."
And Slater was a pretty good lineman, good enough to have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Now Gallery is starting his third year, and his new coach, Slater, is, in fact, the fourth line coach he has had to please in four years.
"There are a lot of different things I've been taught," Gallery said in a monumental understatement.
Gallery concedes that sometimes it is harder to unlearn something than it is to learn something new.
"It's tough," he said. "Sometimes it's easy in practice when we are drilling it and zone in on what they want you to do. But when you get under fire in a game, you can sometimes revert to something you know from the past.
"But that's life in the NFL. We're just going to keep working on things they want us to do, get that down, and then I'll be great."
That is Slater's assignment — to make Gallery great. Coach Art Shell, like Slater a Hall of Fame NFL left tackle, challenged Gallery when he said he expected him to be a Pro Bowl left tackle sooner, if not later.
Gallery likes the challenge.
"I put that pressure on myself," he said. "I hold myself to a high standard."
And so does Slater, whose craft derived from the mind of Houck, who is currently line coach in Miami and previously served as a guru with the Cowboys and Rams with stops in Seattle and San Diego. Everywhere he has gone, running backs broke records on a regular basis.
"I am quite demanding about those things because I know they make sense and that they work," Slater said of the Houck approach.
It's fairly simple: The old military concept of fighting to annex real estate.
"We don't want to waste an opportunity to capture ground," Slater said. "We don't want to lose ground to gain position on a guy. We want (it) right away, want the ground the (other) guy is standing on.
"So, if you (used the) drop-step to get position, a lot of times it takes getting used to because you have pretty good balance ... because you come back to parallel. But the problem is, you have to play football on your side of the line of scrimmage, and that's not what we want to do."
That's been a little bit different for the line, he said, but he says the results will come. "We want to be a lead-step, come-off-the-ball, put-our-masks-on-people (team)," Slater added.
The Raiders have made progress. They started slowly, then in Game 3 a light bulb seemed to click on. They rushed for 156 yards and allowed one sack.
In the first two games they had rushed for 175 yards and allowed five sacks in each game. In Game 3 there was also the gratifying absence of false-start penalties — no surprise considering the new order was to advance on the enemy's position off the snap.
While it is true linemen who play the drop-step and set technique get an advantage in getting a better read on a defender's intentions, Slater says "the big argument for using the drop-step is you can gain great position, gain better angles sometimes.
"We're going to be a combination blocking team, a lot of power blocks at the line of scrimmage. Our goal is to get movement, not position, on a guy to cover him up. We want to knock him off the ball."
Slater concedes that a new mind-set does not necessarily result in instant gratification. Can the job be done before the start of the regular season?
"Maybe ... I think so," Slater said. "I'm going to say maybe because we're teaching guys things they haven't been taught before. When I look back on some of the teams I've played on, I can't ever remember where the offense came out and played out of the chute doing the things we wanted to do."
Slater remembered the 1979 Rams he played on. They went 9-7, with the offensive line adjusting to a new coach, Dan Radakovich, who came from Pittsburgh. But they made the playoffs and by then they were very strong, beating the Cowboys to send Roger Staubach into retirement and then Tampa Bay to reach the Super Bowl before losing to the Steelers.