Special thanks to Grant for sending this one in. If you’re looking for fresh ideas for football lineman drills, you should try this out!
From Grant…
One of our favorite football drills for linebackers is a football drill we call Stack and Rip.
We line up a running back five yards behind a lead blocker and a linebacker at five yards facing the offensive players. The position football coach stands behind the linebacker and signals a direction for the offensive players to go. The offensive players can either come down hill fast as in an isolation read or can go outside and wide as if the play were a sweep. The linebacker first reads the path of the blocker and either Stacks the isolation play or Rips through to the sweep.
If the read is a stack we have a line at two and one half yards from the offensive lineman and we expect our linebacker to stack the guard on the offensive side of the line. As he does the we are constantly talking of pad position, footwork, and hand position. We teach our backers to initiate contact with the inside hand to the chest plate of the blocker and stack the blocker at that!point. The outside hand will simultaneously work to the playside shoulder pad for leverage and control so that we can cover our gap. The running back will then come forward at the same angle as the lineman and we will execute a good form tackle on the back.
If the read is a sweep, the linebacker will take a good initial angle step at the same angle as the blocker and sprint to maintain a half-step behind relationship to the back. When the LB encounters the blocker, he will rip (throw and upper-cut) with his inside arm through the blocker while maintaining good body position with shoulder pads square to the LOS. After ripping through the lead blocker, the LB will execute a proper form angle tackle on the ball carrier.
We use a varsity and junior varsity group during this drill in order to maximize repetitions.
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