also: gallop technique · gallop drill · gallop step
A quick side shuffle that gets a lineman onto a defender somebody else is already blocking, hip first and without squaring up, so he can leave immediately for a second defender. It names both the technique and the drill that reps it.
2 meanings, all below. Jump to the one you heard.
A quick side shuffle, a 1-2 like the legs of a horse, that carries a lineman onto a down defender another lineman has already engaged. He plants and throws his hip into that defender rather than turning and squaring up on him, which puts his whole weight into the block without committing his shoulders to it.
Staying square downfield is the part that matters. It is what separates this from simply doubling. A lineman who squares up on the down man has to turn back out of the block before he can climb, and by then the linebacker is gone. Arriving hip first means he never has to turn, so he comes off clean and the same lineman ends up attacking two defenders on one play.
USA Football calls it "an offensive line run blocking technique" and places it on a double team: guards use it to get hip-to-hip with a center or tackle quickly. The footwork it gives is a gather step to reset, then two balance steps.
gallop techniquecombo block and double team, ace block, pullThe word is used for the drill as readily as for the technique, which is unusual: most blocking techniques and the drills that teach them have separate names. Owner, 2026-07-29: "I think gallop is a drill and a block."
The drill page carries the setup, the steps and the contact level.
gallop drillGallop names a technique and the drill that teaches it, and coaches use it both ways without distinguishing. Per docs/content-model.md a word that spans two formats becomes two entries, so the drill half lives at /football/drills/gallop-drill and this entry keeps the technique. The two senses here mark the overlap rather than resolving it, because the overlap is real usage rather than a modeling mistake.