View topic - STEELERS' CRACKERJACK CRACKBACK MASTER HINES TAKE ON BRONCOS

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Steelers' crackerjack crackback master Hines takes on Broncos
By Jeff Legwold
The Denver Post
Posted: 11/09/2009 01:00:00 AM MST



Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward, right, broke the jaw of Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers with this crushing block during an October 2008 game in Cincinnati. (Peter Diana, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette )

Call them what you will. Call them crackbacks, peel-backs or simply cracks. Call them dirty, nasty, cheap or a Heinz 57 variety of pain.

Call them all of the above, but Broncos tight end Daniel Graham has his own idea.

"It's like payback," Graham said. "It's your chance on the offensive side of the ball to get one of those hits off on a defensive player. They're always getting you when you're reaching for the ball, looking the other way. It's your chance for a big hit, maybe even a big play."

The fine folks at Webster's even have a formal definition of the play — "a blindside block on a defensive back in football by a pass receiver who starts downfield and then cuts back to the middle of the line." But ask around the NFL and there is no greater threat in the ferocious art of the crackback block than Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward.
Ward has left assorted players scattered in his wake over his 12 seasons in the league, enough that a rules change in the block, prohibiting blows to the head of the defensive player, was dubbed "the Hines Ward rule" after he fractured the jaw of Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers last season.

The play was part of a videotape shown by the NFL's officiating department to each team in training camp to emphasize what would and would not be allowed.

"Hines Ward is probably the best at it of anybody, but it's really about offensive positioning," Broncos linebacker Mario Haggan said.

"Teams always put guys, receivers in that position, coming down in motion down the line, to get those blocks. But somehow Hines Ward seems to always create those situations on his own."

The crackback block is a way for a smaller player to be used as a blocker along the line of scrimmage. Often, after lining up wide toward the sideline, he will come in motion before the snap, moving down the line toward the quarterback.
At the snap of the ball, he is already moving and can plow into an outside linebacker or defensive end who is looking up the field toward the quarterback and doesn't see the block coming.

They also occur in the return game — kickoffs, punts, interceptions or fumbles — when defenders are chasing the ball carrier and don't see the blockers coming from the opposite direction in the open field.

"Keep your eyes open"

"The bad part is impact. If a guy catches you in the right place, you're going down and going down big," Haggan said. "When the blocker gets it right, the advantage goes to the offense, but if you keep your head up and catch the blocker, the receiver, and you catch them big, they don't want to come at you again."

"Just be aware, don't get lazy," Broncos outside linebacker Elvis Dumervil said. "It's just football. It's probably no different for us than a quarterback getting hit from the blind side and they get up all the time after those. You keep your eyes open and brace yourself. But if you see it coming, you can give one back."

Ward, who has been dubbed the league's dirtiest player in a Sports Illustrated poll of players this season, is fearless in traffic, his peers say. He is strong enough to block bigger players, and scouts consistently say he gets his feet and hips in position to drive through the defensive player, so when he times it correctly, he has the leverage at impact — which leaves him standing and the defender down.

It has come at a price, though. Ward,

Brandon Stokley dashes around a block by wide receiver Brandon Marshall to score for the Broncos during an October 2008 game against the Buccaneers. "He's very unselfish," coach Josh McDaniels says of Marshall. "He's not one of those guys (who won't block)."

whose Steelers play the Broncos in Denver tonight, said this season that officials were "singling me out" for penalties because of his physical play. He has been one of the Steelers' most penalized players this season.

But overall, it is a dirt-under-the-fingernails job for those who play one of the glamour positions on offense. So the receivers who do it and do it well earn the respect of the defensive players they are trying to block.

"I never thought (Ward) was a dirty player," Broncos coach Josh McDaniels said. "I've always admired the way he plays. People that are complaining about that sometimes are on the other end of a big hit. And he's put a lot of them on people."
Marshall willing to help

This season the Broncos' Brandon Marshall, one of the biggest wide receivers in the league at 6-feet-4 and 230 pounds, repeatedly came down the line of scrimmage to engage Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman in San Diego.

"We asked him to block Merriman, we asked him to block (Chargers linebacker Shaun) Phillips, he blocked (Chargers linebacker Kevin) Burnett a couple times," McDaniels said. "He's very unselfish. A lot of times you have receivers who can't do it or before the game they tell you they won't do it. He's not one of those guys."
Asked last week about his blocking, Marshall felt the gentle sting of Graham — the veteran tight end chided, "How are you going to talk about something you don't do?" — before saying: "I don't think I do it very well right now, but if they ask me, I'll do it. I think I need to be better, though."

Better at the payback.

"Knock on wood, but nobody's really gotten me big in the pros," Haggan said. "In college, yeah, a couple times I was off the ground and down. It's a tough play, and not everybody can do it or even wants to do it. So you know the ones who can, like (Ward), and hope you see them coming."

Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com

Cracking down

Before this season, the NFL made an adjustment to the league rule that covers crackback blocks in the wake of Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward fracturing Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers' jaw last season using a crackback.
The "Hines Ward" rule — Article 12 in the NFL rules book — reads:
"It is an illegal 'blindside' block if the initial force of the contract by a blocker's helmet, forearm or shoulder is to the head or neck area of an opponent when:
(a) the blocker is moving toward his own endline; and
(b) he approaches the opponent from behind or from the side.