Football Drills & Plays

Thanks to Steve, one of my subscribers, for sending this one in.  If you’ve every struggled to find fresh ideas for football drills for tackling, give this one a try!

From Steve…
Team tackling football drill -

Start with four bags placed 2 yards apart. This will give you 3 holes for the running back to run through. Have a runningbacks line and a linebackers line, lined up 3 yards away from first bag.

The football coach stands behind the linebacker and gives the running back 1 finger, 2 or 3 for designated hole. On whistle the running back runs down the line and through the hole. The linebacker shuffles down the line and meets the running back in the hole or behind the bags never let the running back get through the hole.

Teach proper tackling–square up low or mid section, drive feet, head on football, do not wait for RB to hit you go get him.  The running back runs down hill, protect football, run over LB or straight arm.

Switch lines so that everyone gets to do both.

Technorati Tags: football drills for tackling, football drill, football coach, football

Last week, I sent out a request for my newsletter subscribers to send in their favorite drills for youth football.  Check out the football drills below!

From Dee…
One of the football teams I currently coach consists of 7 and 8 year olds.  I have some huge construction cones (4 or 5) that I use for football agility drills.

I stand them up and do:
Zig Zags (Running Back Drill) with a spin at the end I usually have a parent assistant with a handbag hitting them at the conclusion.

I’ll lay them down and do:
Lateral hops
Side shuffles
High Steps
Zig Zag Bear Crawls

From Terry…
I coach here in Springhill, Fl. and the age group is 9 to 10 years old. Last season we missed the super bowl by one game.
I found that at this age group we work on mainly blocking and tackling football drills. Believe it or not I do not recommend the Oklahoma drill. I work on footing and blocking aggressively. We also spend a great deal of time working on special team off side kicks. This is where we win most of our games because most football coaches at this level do not put a lot of time in special teams, and they make the mistake in kicking the ball off into the open field to our two best open field runners.

Technorati Tags: drills for youth football, football drills, football, football agility drills, football drill

Coming up with fresh drills for conditioning for football can sometimes be a challenge.  Here are a couple of football drills that my subscribers sent to me.  Give these a try.

From Douglas…
We call the drill Burma road.
You place 5 to 8 bags depending on the size of your team in a big circle or octagon about 15 to 20 yards apart.
Start a football player at bag number one and he can either shoulder block or hand block each dummy as he comes to it. At the end he grabs the last bag and each player rotates on each bag toward the front.

Great football conditioning drill and you can teach good technique.

From Eric…
Here is my football drill to share.

Divide your team into groups and have them do exercises in rotations of 3 minutes each that consist of 5 work outs. They are leg lifts, squat thrusts mountain climbers, up downs, and jumping back and forth over a person lying down.

Do these before a water break.

Technorati Tags: conditioning for football, football drills, football, football conditioning drill, football drill

Are you looking for linebacker drills for football?  You’ve come to the right place!  Try out this idea below and let me know how it goes for you.

From Dean…
Here is a football drill that works great with a lot of different aspects of the game.  You need one offensive lineman, one offensive blocking back (tb,fb,wr,te,), and one running back. On defense you need one lineman and two linebacker types (corners, safeties, d-end’s work good too).

Offense and defensive lineman face each other as on the line of scrimmage, the linebacker types line up 3 to 5 yards behind the defensive lineman facing the line of scrimmage. The offensive backs line up in the I formation behind the offensive lineman. On the whistle the offensive team may either go to the right or the left, (on both sides of the line up the football coach needs to set two blocking dummies on the ground to create a lane for the offensive guy to run through).

When the offensive guy goes to the right or left the defensive players must use proper angles, learn to plug the hole, and to angle tackle. The defensive lineman must shed his block, breakdown, and move down the line of scrimmage to get in on the tackle. The offensive lineman must take that all critical first step to run block and keep the defensive line man out of the play. The linebacker types must first read/react to direction of the ball then use proper angles to fill the running lane and make a tackle. The offensive blocking back leads through the running lane and makes a open field above the waste block, the running back uses his blocking back, protects the football and gets across the line of scrimmage.

I hope that all of this is understandable. This football practice drill has worked out really well for me and has even caused the moving of key players to different positions that best suit the team.

Technorati Tags: linebacker drills for football, football drill, football coach, football, football practice drill

Take a look at this submission from Greg, one of my subscribers.  A great idea for coaching football special teams that can work with all age groups.

From Greg…
Here’s my football contribution–
Thursday, the night before our Friday’s game, we usually go over football special team preparation.

We do this in an actual game simulation, here’s how it is done:

1.  We start out by doing our kick off ( we send the starters out onto the field as the football coaches are on the sideline to simulate a real game) we have our JV on kick return.  We do this so All know who is on the Kick-off team.
2.  Next we run our starting defense on the field vs JV defense. We run 3 plays and the jv punts. Now our punt return team is on the field ( to make sure we all know who is on that team)
3.  After we return the punt our starting Offense runs on to the field. We run 3 plays and then the starting Punt team runs out on the field and punts to our jv.
4.  The jv fumbles on purpose and the punt team recovers. Starting “o” back on the field.
5.  Starting “O” scores after 2 plays (on purpose) now the extra point team runs onto the field.
6.  Now we have the Jv kick-off and starting kick-return runs a play.
7.  Starting “o” runs 2 plays and fumbles.
8. Starting “D” runs onto the field.
9.  JV offense scores and then Starting “D” extra point team is in.
10. At this point we have run through all teams that will be on the field Friday night under game situations.

We have found out the kids like this and they remember who is on each team better as they recall the previous football practice.

Technorati Tags: coaching football special teams, football, football special team, football coach, football practice