Glossary: Guard

Here at The Long Snapper, we know that a lot of the terminology in American Football is gobbledygook. Heck, plenty of it still confounds us sometimes, and our opinion of what we know is high enough that we started a blog! So, we’re here to help you out. These glossary articles are where you’ll find descriptions of various terms, with examples, and pieces talking through different aspects of the game. In this article, another key component of the offensive line.

G, or Guard

Simple: Be an offensive lineman. Push forward on run plays. Hold people off on pass plays.

Details: I struggled a bit writing this one – what makes a guard a guard is pretty difficult to describe. The two guards will be either side of the center, and on the inside of the two tackles. They often seem cosmetically similar to centers, and it’s no surprise that for a lot of teams, the backup center will be a guard, or the backup guard will be a center.

But there are differences. Centers are generally the shortest players on the offensive line, and while guards are shorter than tackles, they can generally be a bit taller. Both positions are shorter than tackles, because they’re the people who will be in the quarterback’s vision when he’s looking to throw the ball, and it’s easier for a quarterback to be able to see over a 6’3” player than a 6’7” player. But, guards also have to be more athletic, and they’re not going to have as much help from people next to them on the line as centers do. Tackles generally have their hands full of pass rushers and don’t get chance to help, and centers, being slightly less powerful, are the ones more likely to need help. So guards just need to be the sullen brutes, tough, strong, with a good, low centre of gravity. They don’t have to be as speedy as tackles, and they don’t have to be as cerebral as centers.
This is a fairly short glossary article, as it’s a lot of the same things as the centers, though requiring more physical strength and without having to tell teammates what to do much. Guards generally see more powerful players charging at them to disrupt the quarterback, so it’s doubly important that they can stand their ground and hold off powerful players. Think about it: quarterbacks often shift slightly left or slighty right upon taking a snap , so they’re directly behind a guard, or halfway between a guard and center. At that point, if a guard is shoved back by a defender, he’s just going to go careening into the quarterback, who will likely crumple beneath a pile of brutes. Which isn’t ideal.

Good guards can do wonders for your run game, too. You might hear a commentator about guards “pulling” well on a run play. Well, if a running back is running fairly through the center, the odds are that a guard has shoved a defender out the way so they can do so (possibly with the help of the center or a tackle, possibly not). Now, if a guard can finish shoving that player out the way in double-quick time, they can charge a little way downfield and shove the next defender out the way, which can be the difference between a 5 yard run and a 30 yard run, as the guard essentially clears a path for the runner to head into the open field.

So, to be a guard, you need to:

• Go down the gym and do some weights. You need to be very, very strong, and be able to put that power down low on your body to stand your ground.
• Be athletic enough that you can use this strength to shove the biggest and toughest of the defensive players out the way.
• If you want to be really good, be able to shove them completely out the way, charge forward and shove someone else.