Developing Nfl Sports Running Back Habits

Football tackling 101

Learning how to perform a proper tackle is fundamental to the game of football. Tackling can be fun and exhilarating, but done improperly and it can be dangerous. Here are three important steps to practice:

First, you need to stop the opponent quickly so make sure to place yourself directly in front of the opponents path. You can do this by placing your foot between your opponents feet. Also, at this time thrust your arms backward to prepare for the next step.

Second you want to bring your other foot into the mix, and at the same time throw your arms up and around your opponent. Now is the time that injuries can happen. To protect yourself never, ever try to tackle with the crown of your head, but instead keep your head back, and your head square. Tell yourself, or your players to imagine that they are biting the football.

Third, throw your hips up and hard as you drive the offensive player backwards. Setting yourself up for this last step will ultimately prove the success in the tackle.

Conditioning: Dot drilling

Conditioning is meant to increase speed, endurance, and reaction time on the football field. For this reason, coaches like this drill for its focus on speed and accuracy. The drill set up is a mat or place on the field with 5 dots about a foot away from each other forming an X shape, exactly in the same shape as you would see diamonds arranged on a number five card in a poker deck.

The player will start by placing a foot on the back two dots and then jumps together to the middle dot and then out separating his legs to the outer dots, much like you would see in hop scotch. The second phase is having the player touch each of the dots with only one foot, and then switch to the other foot. The next step is jumping on all five dots with both feet together. The last step is the same as the first hop scotch method but this time when the player reaches the other side they will turn around on the two dots. Remember that speed and accuracy are important on this drill so coaches should start players off slow and then proceed to full speed constantly watching accuracy.

Prevent fumbles with strong techniques

One of the fundamental aspects of running with a football is ball security. There is nothing worse than almost getting a first down or even a touchdown and fumbling the ball, for this reason there is a great need for ball security. A great way to teach tight ball security is with four points. The first point is the claw, meaning that your fingers are wrapped over the tip of the football. The second point is your forearm wrapped around the ball and shielding it from the defense. The third point is securing the other point of the football with your bicep making sure that it is right up against it. The final point is keeping the football high and tight against the ribcage. Run a couple of drills were the ball carrier runs through a pack of defenders to practice. In this way you can practice great defensive moves to force a fumble, and also focus on offensive ball protection.

Hand off drill

Because hand offs are such a vital part of a running offense, running backs should practice hand off skills every day. A simple drill for a hand off is to line up all of your running backs in two lines facing each other in what we will call line A and Line B. A player leaves line A with the football and runs at line B. In sync with that first player, a second player leaves line B, when they meet player A passes to player B. Now player B has the ball and will hand off the ball to the next person in Line A who will hand off to the next player in Line B. The motion should be constantly moving from one line to another in this drill, almost like a juggling pattern. Practice this drill every day to ensure that your running backs are effective on their hand offs.