The Most Important Skills in Football

(Originally posted July 23, 2008)

I get asked all the time what the best drills are for football, how to plan practices, and whether or not the Gap-8 really works as a defense.


1) Jerry Vallotton's Timing Drill (DoubleWing.org), and my Hammer Drill (Coming in a later article here on the FB4Y Blog.)


2) By breaking down the necessary skills you need to teach and developing a practical program that first teaches, then reinforces, and finally perfects them in a consistent manner.


3) YES!


But one question I wish someone would ask is, "Coach Wade, what's the most important part of football?"


I think a guy named Lombardi said it best, "Football is, and always will be, a game of blocking and tackling."


When you break these two fundamental skills down into their most important aspects, you have one foundation that applies to both: stance and start.  

 

The biggest problem that youth football coaches face, at least when it comes to on-field skills, is coaching explosive movement. All-too frequently they simply don't know how to coach it, so they let it get lost in the shuffle. The result is what you see in the diagram above.

It's not natural to play low. Youth players are human, and it's a very human tendency to want to pop up and look around. Unfortunately, it's a very real truth that the quickest way to end up lying down on a football field is to stand up.

My intention here is to focus your attention on your players and they way they both go into and come out of their stances. Proper stance and start is the most important thing a football player has to learn. We begin working on it on day one, and several times a day we correct our players in their basic stances. We progress naturally from there to explosive linear movement forward, in what Tim Murphy of Clovis East calls, "Hitting on the rise." In a perfect world our players make contact while they are still low and compressed like a tightly-coiled spring, and their follow-through steps take them under their opponent while gradually lifting, which takes the defender off his balance.

It has to be practiced, and it's so important that I believe it should be practiced not just every day, but several times each day.

Here's the way this works: we break practice into five minute increments called segments. A two-hour practice is composed of twenty-four segments, and an offensive or defensive period is usually composed of between five and seven segments. The first portion of these periods is usually a brief individual drills period to refresh skills and get the players warmed up for their positions.

Since each aspect of the team has their own coach (On offense these are Offensive Line, Backfield, and Tight Ends/Receivers. On defense these are Linebackers, Defensive Line, and Defensive Backs.) we have a perfect opportunity to check relevant stances consistently and constantly throughout the practice.

Let's say you and I are coaching together, and you're my defensive backs coach. When the defensive period begins I blow my whistle three times, loudly, to get every player and coaches' attention. Then I call out, "Defensive indo," (Individual time.) "Go to your coach!" The players have ten seconds to get to their coach, no matter where you happen to be.

When they get to you, they'll break down into a good hit position, which is the fundamental movement position in all athletics. (Seriously, compare it to basketball stance, a defensive tennis stance, even the way soccer players stand when they're not falling down because an opposing player came too close to them.) You'll take a quick glance at their body position, making corrections as needed and as quickly as possible, and then give them a set of brief calisthenics to perform, such as Ten push ups, or Fifteen sit ups. As they finish these exercises, you'll give them a second stance to demonstrate, such as Three-point-Stance. Like you just did, you'll look them over and make brief corrections as needed.

You can even take an extra few seconds and have them execute a get-off, popping out to block your extended hands, one player at a time as you move down the line. Or you can have them execute a dip and rip drill (arm over or arm under) against you, one at a time, moving swiftly along the line and reinforcing this vital escape technique. Or you can hold a dummy and have them hit, lock, and wrap up in the first part of a proper tackle. The possibilities are endless, and as this only takes seconds to work in you can get through an entire group of eleven offensive linemen in less than a minute. (Since there are five offensive linemen on an offensive unit, but only one-to-three running backs, one quarterback, and two-to-four receivers at any one time, the offensive line unit comprised of starters and backups tends to be larger than any other part of the team. In a typical 26-man roster, about ten to fourteen players will be offensive linemen, and the remainder will be spread among the "skill" positions. When planning drills into your practice plan, always consider the time it takes for each group to pass through each drill the required number of times for mastery.)

What have we just done? Well, we not only checked two stances (hit position and one extra), but we also worked a conditioning exercise (sprint to the coach) and a core strength-building exercise (push ups, sit ups, etc.) into the practice in a very time-efficient manner. Executing this practice method takes mere moments. Even adding in the extra get-offs only takes a few extra seconds, and provides an incredible return on investment. Some coaches may go their whole seasons without spending any real time on this important fundamental, and in mere moments we can check it, correct it, and reinforce it every day, from the first day of practice until the day we say our goodbyes.

Stance and start are the most important fundamental foundations in football. A proper stance allows for explosive movement into the opponent, and the correct start allows you to deliver the first blow. By taking just a few seconds throughout practice to focus on them, you can continually reinforce these skills, and proper execution in these areas will improve your team, no matter what offense or defense you choose to run.

~D.