Flag Football Drills – Pitch out and Tackle Drill

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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