Football Drills & Plays

These football spirit drills could be labeled an enthusiasm drill as much as a good pushing, pass blocking mental toughness drill.  Best done before football practice to fire up the troops.  I call it the Motivator!

1. Circle your team.  If you have more than thirty make two circles.

2.  In the center of the circle there are 3 flat cones or anything that make up a target.

3.  Two players stand about 3 yards from the target.

4.  One player with the football tries to get in the target and the other tries to prevent him.  The defender pushes, punches, and screens the ball carrier all the while everyone is screaming, growling, hooting and hollering.  The ball carrier tries by hook or crook to get the ball in the target.

5   Everyone gets a turn and the team, through cheering, decides who the finalist are.

We have found this football drill convinces our players to be tenacious and resourceful.

It need not be pretty.  With toughness and conviction we can do it.  The hooting and hollering bring out the fake till you make it enthusiasm. That is what we find carries over to practice.

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Here’s a youth football coaching tip for your youth teams–Teaching young kids to tackle and block players on the move.

Many of us use the standard West Point 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 live football tackling drills to get the kids to learn tackling as well as blocking and running. We turned this West Point football drill around so we could use it to run out bread and butter sweep play and did a 4-on-3 offense vs. defense sweep and blocking football drill.

Defense – Stand Up Defensive End that is responsible for getting up field and turning everything inside.  Outside linebacker who is responsible only for the tailback.  Corner back who is responsible for pass first but then run support/
Offense – Wide Receiver responsible for the corner back.  Tight End responsible for the Defensive end.  Lead Running back responsible for the outside linebacker.

Drill is set up using only the field from the hash mark to the sideline.  It is a full contact live drill with blocking and tackling. Cones are set to show players where to lineup and running backs are required to stay within the cones to keep the drill active.

This has been a great drill for us as we get the opportunity to work with offensive and defensive players at the same time and the kids get to learn to block and tackle kids who are running towards a sideline and not just directly at them.  Our effectiveness in handling sweeps from the offensive side as well as the defensive side has been incredible.

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One of our favorite football tackling drills is the one we call, The Gauntlet. The advantages of this football drill are that each tackler gets 80-100 tackle opportunities in a 2-3 session period.

2 cones are set up about 5 yards apart, simulating the area that a runner would come through. Another 2 cones with the same distance apart will be set up exactly 4-6 yards from the first set. Continue these sets of cones until you have 6 or 7 sets of 2 cone groups.

Within each 2 cone group is a tackler standing in the middle of the 2 cone group, facing (1) ball carrier.  4-6 yards behind that tackler is another tackler, in a tackling ready position, and the next tackler is positioned the same way, and so on and so on.

Once the tackler makes a tackle on the ball carrier, the carrier gets up and has to run through the next tackler, and so on. Hence the name- The Gauntlet. There will be a line of ball carriers lined up ready to go after the first tackle is made.
The tackler has to get up quickly after making the tackle because there will be another ball carrier coming at least 5-10 seconds later.

Remember, this football drill offers you an opportunity to evaluate and correct poor tackling technique and poor running as well.

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These are football practice drills for teaching players to stay low, shed multiple blocks, stand their ground, find the ball carrier, and most importantly get excited about hitting.  Give this football drill a try and let me know how it works for you.

Shed Drill
Put your biggest and most aggressive players in one line, 5-10 players, and the rest of the team in the other line.  The first football player steps out 3 yards and turns around.  The last player is given the football, although you could place the ball anywhere in the line to focus on recognition.

On the whistle, each player attacks a side of the LB/DL out front. They do their best to alternate sides but it is not necessary.  They all take a turn hitting the player with very little time in between hits.

The LB out front will have a good stance, hit and shed every player as fast as possible while owning the ground he stands on.  Once he has hit and shed all blockers he will make a form tackle on the ball carrier at full speed.  He will then rotate to the end of the line to carry the ball.

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Coming up with ideas for flag football drills can be a challenge.  Try this football drill we call Pitch out and Tackle drill.  You’ll see rapid improvement with your team.

Set up 3 cones.  2 cones are straight across from each other about 7 yards apart.  One is for the defense person (linebacker) and the other is for the offense running back.  The third cone is spread out about 15 yards towards the sideline right in the middle of the other two cones.  Makes a long triangle.

The quarterback sets up between the two cones and hikes the ball and pitches it back to the running back. The running back’s goal is to make it around the cone and head down field without getting caught. The linebacker starts out on his hands and knees and when the football is hiked races to the cone, breakdown and grabs the flag of the running back.

The first week we had one boy being able to pull flags at the point of attack.  Now the boys are catching the running backs flags about 60% of the time.  This has really helped us be able to stop running plays that were eating us up at the beginning of the season.

Linebackers start on their hands and knees because they were anticipating the pitch and getting there too quickly.  The position makes it more of a challenge.

This has also been good at teaching pursuit of the runner and getting the right angle.  Some boys used to try and cut straight to the running back and would end up getting beat.  As soon as they learned to race them to a point in space like the cone they started catching up to the running backs.

This has been good for running the ball as well.  First they have to catch a pitch out and not a hand-off.  Second they are trying to get to the corner of the defense and run to the end zone.  They are able to put a move on a pursuing defensive person and get away.

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