Each week Coach Bass brings his 30 years of NFL coaching experience to USA Football. Email Coach Bass your question.
John sent the following question:
I am going to be coaching my own Little League team this fall for the first time. Is it more important to run plays or do fundamental drills?
Hi John,
For all players there is no question in my mind that techniques are the foundation for football success. Players can know their assignments but if they do not have the proper technique to carry out the assignment, they will usually have difficulty having success.
The key is to match your fundamental technique drill up to the activities that you are going to ask your players to do when they start running plays or executing a defense.
This is why I suggest to all coaches that they take each play, write down the assignment for every player, then write down the technique that each player needs to know to accomplish his assignment and then write up the particular drill that you are going to use to teach the technique that matches the assignment.
This may take some time and limit the number of plays and the time it takes to introduce each play as part of your offense, but the up side is that you will never be asking a player to do something that he does not know how to do and each play will have a greater chance for success.
As the season progresses, many times coaches will eliminate or seriously cut back the time they spend reviewing and coaching techniques. I think this is a serious error at any level and especially for younger players.
Adding new plays can be exciting - especially for the coaching staff - but not providing the necessary time to teach every technique that each player needs to run the new plays successfully can be disastrous to a player's confidence.
Young players need to know how to run a few plays really well rather than trying to be to complex and having them confused on their assignment and how to execute the assignment.
Good luck this season, try to always keep it safe and fun and make sure all players on your team have a chance to play.
Coach Tom Bass
Coach Tom Bass, the technical writer and advisor for USA Football, is a 30-year NFL coach who has also authored several books, including "Play Football the NFL Way" - the first "how to" book ever authorized and published by the NFL. Coach Bass is happy to personally autograph his books to you. Book ordering information can be found at http://www.coachbass.com/.
