Three-Step & Five-Step Drop Quarterback Drills

In today’s video blog post, we are highlighting Three-Step & Five-Step Drop Quarterback Drills.  Drop Quarterback drills are excellent because your quarterback can work on those deeper passes, and the receivers work more time deeper in the field.

The 3 Step Drop

The 3 Step Drop allows us to send our receivers up field a little bit deeper (6-8 yards) before they have to break their different routes.

• The basics at this level:

1. Quarterback gets the ball
2. QB gets back in the pocket…
3. …sets his foot
4. …and steps in the direction he is going to throw

• Going to the left, you have to open the hips a little bit, and make sure you’re stepping in the direction you want to throw.

The 5 Step Drop

In youth football, the 5 Step Drop can be used to really move you up the field. If you have a quarterback who has a really strong arm, this is a good depth to drop.

**But, you don’t NEED this – you could get by perfectly well with a one step or three step drop, and then getting the quarterback out of the pocket on a sprint out.

To learn more about Drop Quarterback Drills, you might want to check out “3-Step, 5-Step & 7-Step Drops for Your QB”

If you have any favorite Quarterback drills you like to use with your athletes, feel free to share them below!  And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more great Quarterback drills, tips and practice plans!

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I have a saying that says, Players make plays. Coaches can be the greatest coaches in the world, but unless they have good players, they’re not going to be very good.

In today’s blog post, I am talking about some great practice drills that you can implement into your team’s training program, so they can progress in their skills, and you can become that great coach!

Pressed Defensive Back Drill

In this drill we’re going to try to emphasize our release and then working against a pressed defensive back. And there’s some elements that we want to encourage. We want to go back to the concept of attacking half the defender, using good body lean, and then as we defeat the defender we want to retrace to where we saw him last.

If he’s in position, we’ll try to touch his opposite shoulder from where we’re running to give him a false read. And then the last of the components is to stick the route and run it. We’re in a pressed defensive situation, so the hands are up, we’re in a good body position, good body lean, and we’re going to attack the defender.

Pressed Defensive Back Drill

Outside Cut Drill

Now let’s look at an outside cut. We’re going to attack the outside half of the defender and then use basically the same techniques of retracing to where we saw him last if we have the opportunity to touch his shoulder, and then sticking the route.

So let’s review those points.

• Good stance. You want your body over your knees in good lean position.
• Use your hands. Use the rip or swim move.
• Retrace to where you saw the defensive back last. And then you want to touch on opposite shoulder if the opportunity presents itself.
• Finally, stick the route, whether it be an out cut or an in cut. This is what is critical in separating from a defensive back.

Outside Cut Drill

Base Coverage Drill

This drill is set up to give an impression of base coverages. Set up a two-high coverage using the barrels as the safeties. The cones are used as the underneath coverage; the corners and the linebackers.

This is a good two-fold drill. One, for your receivers, so they can see the seams in the difference defenses, and then for your quarterbacks to work their progression. If you have a full complement of receivers and a full complement of quarterbacks, you can line all of them up and go through their one, two, three reads assigning each quarterback their read.

In this particular drill we have two receivers and two quarterbacks, so one quarterback will drop and hit the initial read which is going to be the seam route between the two deep safeties. The other quarterback will take his drop, look to that route, he’ll pretend it’s covered, and then work his way to his option route which will be the slot receiver hooking up between the two linebackers.

So this drill is really two-fold. One, it allows receivers to see seams in defenses, and then also to help your quarterbacks with progression reads and to learn to catch and throw the ball in game-like or defensive-like situations.

Base Coverage Drill

Three-deep concept

In this drill, we’ve changed the defensive alignment to a three-deep concept. We have the three barrels no win the two corner positions and the middle safety. And now we’re going to work the hook-flat combination. Again, this is all about spacing and seeing seams in the defenses’ alignments.

So the outside receiver will be running the hook route. The inside receiver will be running the flat combination. Again, the quarterbacks will go through their read. And basically these are stationary reads, but in a live situation they would be reading off the underneath coverage.

But we’re using two quarterbacks, two receivers, so one quarterback will go one two progression, and the other quarterback will throw to the first progression. In this case, the first progression is the hook route. So again, we’re emphasizing seeing spacing in defensive alignments, and then going through our quarterback progression. This is a hook-flat combination.

And in this drill you emphasize all the same things you do in basic drills. You want to have that body lean, hands and release working in space, coming back to the ball, sticking your routes, reaching out to catch the football. Hook-flat combination.

This is a great opportunity for quarterbacks to see spacing, for receivers to see the seams, and to work on all the fundamentals.

Three-deep concept

What do you think of these football practice drills?  Like them?  Love them?  Can’t wait to try them?  Share your comments below!  And for more great Football Drills and Practice Plans, be sure to check out my video training series, complete with podcast clips!  And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more great football practice drills, tips and techniques!

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Right Legged Thrust Speed Drill

In today’s video blog post, we are featuring a “Right Legged Thrust” speed drill that allows the athlete to build on just the right leg, resulting in a lot more explosiveness and power.

Breaking Down the Speed Drill:

Legs

• The athlete brings the leg to the same level he would if running, using the same arm movement all the way through, but concentrating on just the right leg. This leaves the left leg for dead movement, acting as the balance and support all the way through the speed drill.

• Make sure the athlete is doing the thrust movement, bringing the right leg all the way up. The right leg is the power leg, and the left leg is the balance leg.

• Bringing the right leg up to the same level he would in a normal run allows him to apply a lot more stress and do more work on the one leg.

• You want to ensure the athlete is keeping that left leg just stiff enough to balance and go all the way through. You don’t want the athlete to put too much weight onto the left, because then it will not work the power leg as much as it should.

• You want to really work on getting that knee up and driving it through the plane of the body. The plane of the body is right at the hip level. So if the athlete can get that knee past the hip level, that allows him to drive that foot down and get a lot more power in his stride and work all the way through.

Arms

• Make sure the athlete really works on the backward mobility of the arm. The further the arm comes back, the more the leg comes up. So you really want to work on that flexing mobility. The muscles are just like rubber bands, allowed to stretch and expand, but they always retract to their original form.

• The right arm is the counterbalance weight of the right leg.

• As the athlete pushes all the way through and stresses that leg, that arm works the stress in the same way, giving a lot more motion to the arm, and a lot more mobility to the leg. This gives the athlete the opportunity to work one side of the body and concentrate the thrusting of the right leg.

What do you think of this speed drill?  Like it?  Love it?  Can’t wait to try it with your athletes?  Feel free to share your comments below!   For more great speed drills, be sure to check out my Football Drills and Practice Plans series, complete with video demonstrations!  And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more great speed drill suggestions!

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Football Plays – The Strategy

Because of the deep handoff, the FB has a chance to gain some separation and start his block. This gives the TB more time in the backfield, which they can use to get up to full speed and/or assess the open running lanes.

Player Responsibilities

Offensive Line
LT: Short fan blocks  # 2 on LOS.
LG: Short fan blocks # 1 on LOS
C: Blocks NT.
RG: Pinches the NT before releasing to weak side LB.
RT: Blocks DT.

Backs & Receivers
TE: Pass blocks strong side OB.
SE: Releases inside to block FS.
FL: Releases inside to block SS.
FB: Lead blocks strong side LB for TB.
TB: Takes handoff, following behind the RG and FB.
QB: Runs straight back for a handoff deep in the back field.

Coaching Tips

• For this play to be it’s most effective, the QB needs to drop back the exact same way on this play, as he does on the ISO pass.
• This forces the defense to locate the ball before making their move and can get our TB the extra half second he needs to break past the LBs out into the secondary.

Be sure to check out my previous article, Football Plays 101: How To Design A Killer Playbook, where I talk about designing and implementing effective football plays for your team, the challenges faced by even the most experienced coaches, important terminology, and provide some useful coaching tips, diagrams and sample plays to illustrate the most important points.

Want more Ultimate Football Plays?  Then check out http://footballtutorials.com/runplay.html, where you can access this and more great football plays, complete with video demonstrations!  And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will be sharing more valuable football coaching tips, techniques and drills!

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If you are looking for a great offensive line drill for warmups, “Ball Punches” are a fabulous practice drill that will help your players to train the hands and work on punching through the chest.

The concept of this offensive line drill is shooting a heavier object at a defender/partner. It trains the players to get their hands up and fire through to the opponents chest. It helps the player think about putting the punch through to the defender, as well as getting down in the squat pass protection seated position.

How to perform the “Ball Punch” Offensive Line Drill

• This drill trains a guy to get ready to punch a defender whose getting ready to rush at him.

• Using weighted balls will condition your players to take a pass set and punch a chest pass to a partner right across from them.

• You want to be in a good body position where you have your knee inside of your foot, 80% of your weight inside, and a shoulder-toe protecting yourself from the rusher.

• As you’re working the ball punches, you don’t want your players to bring their hands into their chest with the heavy ball, because they wont have the extension or separation to keep that lineman at bay.

In offensive line play, you can put one guy across from each other all day but it will wear on your guys unless you break it up and do some different drill work. We try to train players with their footwork, body position and hand strike. In our practices, we try to work on one thing today – it may be punches one day, or kick sets another day.

If you enjoyed this offensive line drill, be sure to check out my Football Drills and Practice Plans series!  And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more great offensive line drill ideas!

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Today, we are going to talk about a variety of rush drills that will help enhance an athlete’s performance throughout the season.

Pass Rush Transition Drill

In the pass rush transition drill, I let the young men use whatever pass rush move they want, and then I ask for one counter move as they go.

As we go through this pass rush transition drill, I let them do whatever techniques they want. Slap the hands away, which is a very, very effective pass rush move, or work on one half of the body and eliminate the hand of the side you’re going to go to. Very, very simple.

So as we go through this drill, I’ll let my guys do their own techniques, their own pass rush, whatever they feel comfortable with. And I ask them to master two and one counter move. So as the player goes through the drill, I will want to see one counter move, and then a series of pass rush moves.

I tell my guys, especially in third and long, to make sure your players have a plan. A plan and a counter plan. And that’s what this pass rush transition drill is for.

Over Rush Counter Drill

The next drill we’ll talk about is an over rush counter drill. This is where we actually go beyond the quarterback’s depth. And we want to work our self back down inside to the quarterback’s level.

There are two ways we do this. Either we get up above the quarterback, and as he’s running me , I’ll stop and spin back under with my ninja. Or if he’s running me up the field and I’m rushing, I’ll use a hook back under so I don’t get pushed by the quarterback. This is the Over Rush Counter.

Wide Rush Counter Drill

The next drill we’re going to cover is what we call a wide rush counter drill. That’s simply an offensive lineman jumping me from the get-go. A lot of offensive tackles jump my guys because of our pass rush techniques, and the most effective way is really to jump those guys.

So we work tremendously hard on the wide rush jump. Any kind of jump we get, we’re going to under cut it. They can spin. They can swim. They can slap upper cut. They can do any kind of a jump they want.

Pressure Point Drill

Next, we’re going to talk about the pressure point drill. In this drill, the pressure points are the wrist, elbow, and shoulder pad. If we ever get a hold of any of these, we never want to let go of them because the offensive lineman’s dead while we are holding those pressure points. Obviously the shoulder pad is the easiest to get because of the surface, then the elbow. The wrist is the hardest to get.

To run this drill, two players are going to practice hitting pressure points, working up the arm, hardest to easiest.

The Pass Rush is kind of like breathing. When you go to bed at night, you train your body. You don’t think about breathing, you just do it. And I think you can do the same thing in pass rush. You want to get a hold of one of these pressure points by hitting them and never let go of them. So we just practice hitting.

Flash Drill

Now we’ll move on to a flash drill. I want to see the hands flash and I want to see them grab a pressure point and incorporate a pass rush move. Think of it like a little snake knocking the hand around.

For more great rush drills and tips for creating a winning defensive line, be sure to check out my Football Drills & Practice Plans series.  And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more great rush drills, tips and techniques to lead to a winning season!

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In today’s video blog post, we are talking about the “Cup-It Drill”, which is a great football drill for incorporating “team-ness”.  This is a great team tackling drill, and once you do this football drill a couple times, the players really understand how to play together as a unit.  The Cup-It Drill also best simulates an open field, live game tackle situation.

The Cup-It Football Drill

In this drill, we use three defensive players and one ball carrier.

There are 4 important points to this football drill:

1. Where is my help? This is one of the most important – and difficult – concepts to teach young men playing defense. This means “if I miss this tackle, where does the ball carrier need to go?” As a coach, you need to spend a lot of time teaching your players to take a shot opposite of where your teammates are coming from. The Cup-It Drill gives you the opportunity to coach this important concept.
2. Take a shot – near man  – If you are the near man in this drill, meaning the drill is coming to your side, we need to be sure to teach that player to take a shot – make the big hit tackle. Take the opportunity to make the bone hit and get on the highlight reel. That’s why we play football – that’s why we play defense. You know you have help on the inside, so don’t be afraid to take a shot.
3. Hip pocket – inside man – If you are the inside man on the drill, you want to maintain inside hip pocket relationships .
4. Cleanup – far man – If you are the far man in the drill, you’re the cleanup man. If your buddy doesn’t make the big hit, and the number 2 man just holds him up, it’s your job to clean it up and get the hit. Or, if your two teammates force a turnover, you should be the man to clean it up and scoop and score off the fumble.

So, what do you think of this football drill?  Like it?  Love it?  Share your comments below!  And don’t forget to check out my complete Football Drills & Practice Plans series, for more great drills, tips and techniques!

And be sure to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more great football drill ideas!

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Football Plays – The Strategy

Football is a game of inches, and sometimes, that’s all you need – a couple of inches. Here’s a no-nonsense, powerblocking run, great for 3rd or 4th and inches, or anywhere down near the goalline. And if no holes open up quick enough, tell your TB to dive up and over the line!

Player Responsibilities

Offensive Line
LT: Blocks man, seals him outside.
LG: Blocks man, seals him outside.
C: Leads right, stopping any penetration by LBs or DTs.
RG: Leads left, blocking first DT.
RT: Blocks DT any direction.

Backs & Receivers
LTE: Blocks man, seals him outside.
RTE: Blocks DE any direction.
FB: Reads RT’s block, going either inside or outside.
PB: Reads RTE’s block, going either inside or outside.
TB: Follows FB and PB, pacing himself, waiting for a hole he can explode out of to appear.
QB: Hands ball to TB and gets out of the way.

Coaching Tips

• The direction of the blocks for the RT and RTE don’t matter – but sustaining them for as long as possible does.

• If you don’t have an effective power runner, take a page out of Bill Belichick’s book and give an OLB a shot – they’ve go the perfect combination of speed and strength to do awesome in short yardage.

Be sure to check out my previous article, Football Plays 101: How To Design A Killer Playbook, where I talk about designing and implementing effective football plays for your team, the challenges faced by even the most experienced coaches, important terminology, and provide some useful coaching tips, diagrams and sample plays to illustrate the most important points.

Want more Ultimate Football Plays?  Then check out http://footballtutorials.com/runplay.html, where you can access this and more great football plays, complete with video demonstrations!  And don’t forget to Follow Me on Twitter, where I will be sharing more valuable football coaching tips, techniques and drills!

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There are many common offensive line mistakes that all teams make.  You see them in youth, freshman, JV, and high school football.  But today, we are going to talk about how you can fix these common mistakes!

Mistake #1 – They play too high

They are standing up in their stance, they don’t play low enough. You see it all the time – you even see it in the pros sometimes too. You want to make sure that the linemen is getting underneath his opponents pads, and trying to get the player back on his heels. He doesn’t want to try to block up high, he wants to get low where he can get his hips through , shoulders back and arms fully extended. So you get that punch drive climb – that’s what we want.

How do you do this? Practice, practice, practice. We have chutes on our field, but you can use anything – PVC pipes and make them yourself pretty easily. You just want to get something so that when they fire out of their stance, there is some type of ceiling on it that won’t allow them to pop up out of their stance. You want to practice this every day, and that will help them come out of their stance flat as opposed to standing straight up in their stance.

Mistake #2 – They look at the player they are blocking

Another thing that a lot of linemen do – especially at the youth and early high school levels – is when they break the huddle, they look directly at the guy their blocking. This is a dead giveaway. I tell my defensive linemen all the time, look the guy right in the eyes as soon as he breaks the huddle. If he looks at you, 99% of the time, he’s going to block you. If he looks at a linebacker, he’s going to that linebacker, which means you’re going to get trapped or down-blocked. So there are a lot of things you can tell your defensive linemen to look for as an offensive linemen when they break the huddle, so as an offensive linemen you need to be aware of that – you come out of the huddle and look straight ahead. Don’t look anyone in the eye, get down in your stance and keep looking straight ahead.

Do you see these mistakes with your own offensive line players?  If so, hopefully these tips will help!  Be sure to come back and let me know how it works out!  And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where you can discuss this, and other offensive line drills, techniques and tips with other coaches and players!

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Double Barrel Drill

In this drill, we attack the barrels, just like they’re a defender. We get as close to the barrel as we can and go around it and attack the next one. When we get up to the other end, there’s a barrel in the middle – we go around that barrel.

The guys that hit the barrels ought to have 50 push-ups per barrel. Because the idea is not to hit the barrels – it’s a game of changing directions, speed, feet, motion and balance. This is a good drill to help a running back have good balance and carry the football.

Running Ropes

One of the best tools that you have is running ropes. I think ropes are great! We use them with our running backs, but they’re good for every position. Linemen, defensive players, everybody’s got to be able to play with their feet. When we look at new players, we look for good feet. We look for people who can move. We look for people that can change direction.

So we do a whole series of drills on our ropes. I think every player on the team should run the ropes during practice. Because it’s good for everybody.

So, this is how we do this drill:

The first thing we do is say “one foot.” And then we come down one side of the rope grid. When we get through, we want to sprint at least five yards. When the first man gets to the third hole, the next man starts. We sprint through, go five yards, and then we’ll stay on the end, tucking the ball.

Sometimes the coaches gets out here and we’ll slap at the ball to see if we can knock that ball out of there. As they’re coming through, they’ve got to tuck that ball and protect the ball.

One Foot

The first drill, we just call it “one foot.” The player’s going to put one foot in each hole. As he puts it in, he’s going to work on getting his feet up high. The coaches are going to be on the same side side, and we’re going to reach and see if we can grab that ball.

Two Feet

Next, we use two-feet – we want to get two feet in each hole. Wait until the first player gets about halfway through and then start the next player. Again, you are going to sprint when you come out.

Crossover

The next thing we’re going to do is a cross over. What do we do when we cross over? The player’s going to run right straight down, but there’s a rope right in the middle. Keeping the body over that middle line the whole time, you’re going to put the right foot in the left hole, and the left foot in the right hole. And as you’re going down to the end, you’re going to stay right over the rope, not move the body much, again, working on getting my knees up high and protecting the football as I go down the line.

Diagonals

What we’re going to do now is work on changing directions. When you watch tapes, and you see a good back, if a guy’s got to really round it off and move, he has a problem. What we want to do is change directions and gain speed at the same time.

So what we do is begin outside the ropes. To start off, we’re going to step with our near foot. This time I’m on the left side of the rope, so I’m going to step with my right foot. I go right, left, right. All the way to the outside. I’m not slowing down – just changing directions. Then I go left, right, left, right, left, right. And then as you go, you’ll begin to gain speed and momentum, at the same time changing directions. Coming back, it will be left foot first and then we’ll come all the way out, gaining speed as we’re going.

The Pitch

And we’ve got one more we do. With the football, we’re going to come down the line. We want to work on getting our feet up, so we don’t want to look at our feet – we’ve got to be seeing the field. And we’ve got to catch passes. We have to catch the ball.

So what we do is come in with the left foot first. Put the left foot up and as you come through, and then the coach is going to pitch him a ball. And then he’s going to pitch it right back to the coach. He comes down the line, and again the coach is going to pitch him the ball and then he comes right back with it. He’s going to do left foot first going down, and the right foot first going back.

And then we’ll line up with another guy. We use two balls so we can keep it going. And then we’ll get everybody in it.

During everything we do, we want to take care of the football. This is the MOST important thing. We always want to have good body lean forward, we want to pick our feet up, and we want to change directions. The ropes, the barrels, the piggyback, the score drill – all those things go into making a good running back.

One other thing they’ve got to do, and we’ve got to work on this every day – especially in our offense – is a running back has got to block. We have running backs that talk about running, but if you don’t block, it’s hard to play. Your running back has to be unselfish. He’s got to be able to block, AND he’s got to be able run. You do that, you’re winning football.

One thing about these drills – you have to do them consistently. You have to do them several times a week. Some of these drills we do every day. Some of them we do once a week. But you have to keep doing them if you’re going to improve.

What are your favorite Running Back Drills?  Feel free to share them below!

And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more great running back drills, tips and practice plans!

Looking for more Tips for Football Running Backs?  Find them here!!

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