Fundamentals can be taught in three steps.
Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin told me several years ago that whatever the fundamental concept or drill, teach it in three steps or less. Anything more than three steps are too much for a player to remember. I thought if he is doing this with NFL players, it would be a good idea to do this with the high school and college athletes I was coaching. Since that conversation, I have tried to use Coach Tomlin’s strategy in my coaching philosophy, defensive philosophy, and teaching of drills.
With the idea of teaching football players a concept in three steps or less, look at a few fundamentals of the defensive line. The first phase we go over is stance. We use a three-point stance. We want our defensive linemen to have a toe to instep relationship, flat back, with the hand down slightly in front of their eyes. The off hand will be up with slight flexion in the arm in a ready position. The weight distribution on the down hand will be determined on the down and distance situation. The defensive line as a whole will have their shoulders parallel with the line of scrimmage. No one will be tilted in a certain direction. We will allow stances to vary to what the player is most comfortable with but the principles will remain the same.
The second phase to go over is the first step. Our defensive linemen will take a six inch step with their back foot, keep hips low with a continued flat back. There should not be much elevation of the back, if any, from the stationary stance to the first step.
The third phase to go over is the punch or shooting of the hands. In shooting the hands, we want the player’s arms locked with his thumbs up. The landmark for the player’s hands is the bicep and breast plate of the offensive lineman. The hand that makes contact with the breast plate is the power hand. The hand that makes contact with the bicep is the steering hand.
Once we get through the stance, step, and punch, we move on to run recognition blocks. The three basic run reads we look for are a base, reach, or down block. Recognizing a block does not mean we are passive or sitting on our heels by any means.
We instill in our players an attitude that once the recognition has taken place, they are going to beat their opponent to the point of attack with more power and more speed.
With the base block, we want the defensive lineman to take the proper steps, shoot his hands and drive/constrict the opposite gap with the offensive lineman’s body. With a reach block, he takes the proper step, shoots his hands, and push pulls. When he push pulls, he keeps leverage on his gap while moving his feet in a forty-five degree angle laterally upfield. With a down block the D-lineman takes a step shoots his hands, and looks down the line of scrimmage for any pull. We want the D-linemen to constrict air between themselves and the offensive linemen preparing to spill any pull or kick out block.
While we recognize the run blocks, we are always rushing the passer first while playing the run. This mindset allows the defensive linemen to play fast more consistently. We want our D-linemen to be a fast, physical, ball hawk defense.
Most of us like to hear stories about an underdog team beating another. Most of us have heard of the story of David and Goliath. David had a son named Solomon who was one of the most intelligent men to ever walk the planet. I’m sure some of Solomon’s wisdom was passed down from his father David. This makes me think about what am I passing down to my children and to the players I coach.
Solomon is the author of the Book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs spends time talking about the fundamentals of life. Teams who are successful spend time on the fundamentals. There are thirty one chapters in the Book of Proverbs and there are usually thirty to thirty one days in a month. If you read the Proverb of the day every day for a year you would have read that chapter twelve times in a year. After awhile those words of wisdom will impact your life. It takes two minutes to read a chapter and, remember, games can be won or lost in two minutes.
About the Author:
Danny White is the Defensive Coordinator at Madison Ridgeland Academy in Madison, Mississippi. He previously was both the Defensive Line Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at Belhaven University, serving on the staff from 2003-2014. White also coached on the staff of his alma mater, Southwest Baptist University, for four years.