Are Tom Cable's guards too far off the line of scrimmage?

I'd like to see the end to the practice of leaving one armed centers out on an island to get beat up by the biggest and strongest lineman or rotation of lineman the opponent can throw at him.

I've seen Tom Cable position his guards as far off the line of scrimmage as possible without drawing a flag. Too often they line up as deep as the offensive tackles. It puts great pressure on the center to defend the A gap.

And even though the practice does allow the utilization of a guard with deficient quickness to compensate by using distance to buy time to get out of a stance, it just isn't worth the price of defeating and beating up the center who has his own responsibilities in addition to that of calling out protection assignments.

I can understand a player coach trying to launch or salvage a players career. But Cable goes to far with it .... to a fault. In team sports, I think the fortunes of the many outweigh the needs of the one. IMHO Cable has been ridiculous.

Worst case senario for Sunday would be watching Rams flying around the edge and blowing thru the A gaps.

How does it make it harder on the center? It doesn't change how deep the DL lines up. It gives the guards more space to work laterally and makes it easier for a guard to reach an interior DL to get a better combo with the C.

The blocking center sees first contact with no help initially and only one defending arm. Setting the guards so deep delays cooperative engagement. The center often must conceed ground and inertia to pick combo help.

The alignment only benefits the guards. The center pays a price.

I understand the benefit of placing guards further back. Thats not what bothers me. Its the amount of depth the guards are lining up at.

Too follow up ..... let me say ....

I am familiar with teams with a center out front ..... the guards lined up further back off the line of scrimmage ... and the tackles lined up even further back from the line of scrimmage ... in something of a bowl shape.

This year I've noticed Seahawk guards and tackles lining up at the same maximum depth off the line of scrimmage. I'm either suggesting or asking if that is abnormal.

It might not be the most common way of doing it, but it's not abnormal. The center will be making contact at the same time regardless of when the guard gets there. The C will also often be taking a drop step in order to create an angle on the defender he is contacting, and setting the guards deep gives them a better angle to get to their aiming points. Conceding ground is an accepted practice in zone blocking in order to create running lanes and to allow the defenders to declare their assignment so the OL can determine the combo blocks accordingly. A lot of blocking assignments are horizontal and about fitting up on a defender to let the RB make his reads and cut instead of firing out straight and trying to push them a certain direction. If the guard is half a step back to help create a running lane, the timing is negligible as far as when he gets to the combo with the center