Advancing Middle School American Football Defensive Habits

Proper Catching Leads to Great Ball Security

To insure a proper catch, a receiver must secure the football into a proper carrying position. The points of a proper catch are: First, opening up your hands with an open triangle. Second, keep your eyes on the ball through the entire catch. Third, secure the ball tight and high against your ribs, forearm, and biceps. Many receivers can get into a bad habit of looking away from the ball before it is stored away properly. Taking your eye off the ball increases incomplete passes, fumbles, and turnovers. To prevent this, have two receivers throw to each other and as they catch it have them slow down the motion so that they pause at each catch, follow through and tuck.

Water on and off the field

Dehydration should never appear on the football field if both the players and coaches have good habits. Make sure that during the football practice players have their water bottles handy and are drinking often. Always remember that if you prevent, punish, or otherwise use water as a motivational tool it is very counterproductive, and there are many other motivating paths that you can take. These safe practices will help keep players energized and healthy.

Steps to effectively block driving

Simple drives are important for linemen to practice and perfect. The drive block is the most fundamental and should be practiced often. This drive block means that you are going to push the opponent in the direction that they are aligned. It starts with the lineup, when you are facing your opponent notice which way they are aligned, if they are off to the right then you will drive them to the right if the play is occurring on the left side of the field. When executing this block start with your play side foot, meaning if the play is on the right side of you it will be your right foot. Connect hard against your opponent, bring your other foot into play and continue to drive in the aligned direction.

Constant motion drill to increase ball handling skills

This drill is used to increase players ball handling skills on the field. In this drill players will be constantly moving or passing the ball from one hand to the other. The drill starts by having players hold the football above their head and start to pass it around their head, moving to the chest, under the arms, around the waist, knees, and completing with passing it through the legs.

Coaches can mix up the drill by shouting out body parts that the players will have to start circling with the football; they can also reverse the direction that the ball is traveling by calling, reverse. This change of motion will keep players from falling asleep, and ensure that you are developing handling skills and not just muscle memory.

At the very end of the drill the players will do several simple drops. The player will drop the ball and quickly pick it up again. To further increase pickup skills have your players change up the hands that they are using so that both their strong and weak hands are developed.