Breaking Down the Side Tackle

Football is a game of angles, and we must be great side tackling defensive players. We want to be able to put our youngsters in a position to have thousands of repetitions making good tackles. Yet we don’t want to put them in situations where they are always pounding on each other, thus risking a lot of injuries. The Side Tackle is probably the most prevalent tackle in football, regardless of age group. (also referred to as the “Angle Tackle”)

In today’s video blog post, we are breaking down the elements of the Side Tackle, and demonstrating how to properly implement this valuable technique into your game plan!

Important Points of The Side Tackle

Focus on getting the head across the body of the offensive player
As the ball carrier is coming across to the outside of you, stay in a hip pocket relationship, meaning keep the ball carrier out in front of us in every side or angle tackle. When you get a head up on the player, you give him the opportunity of 2 ways to go.
Get your face and eyes across to the aiming point. The aiming point in the side tackle is the far jersey number.
As you converge on the football, you want to be in a good football position, come to balance, and when the other players decides to just try to get by/outrun you, that’s when you are going to take a shot up through the man and that aiming point.
Be sure to get the head across, shoot the hands around and wrap the man up.
When making that tackle and you begin driving the man back down the field, try to take him straight backwards with square shoulder pads. If you can get your outside foot down, you can move the player backward and have fewer failed plays.

Remember you always want to fight pressure from where pressure is coming from.

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