So how can you cut your cornerback drills time in half?  Are you sitting down?

Stop backpedaling.

The Open Slide

If you’ve never coached kids to backpedal and read, plant on the 3rd step, pick up the foot, roll over and break in one of 8 directions, you’re missing out.  It may be the most frustrating thing in the world, for everyone involved.  Cornerback drills have traditionally involved tons of backpedals around cones, all day.

Now you can utilize that 7 foot Chinese kid that finally joined the team.

So we started teaching the Open Slide a few years ago.  Our DB coach needed a whole new list of cornerback drills for practice, because everyone could pretty much open slide after about 5 minutes.

For cornerbacks in Quarters Coverage, we aligned a yard outside of the #1 receiver, in an open stance with the belt buckle pointing toward the middle of the field.  His back is turned to the side line.

On the snap, he shuffles out 3 steps, reading the #2 Receiver.  We ask him to take a peak at the Quarterback – mainly to check for a fade ball.  If you read #2 or the Quarterback through the first 3 steps, you should have an idea of what’s being run.

In Cover 3 we moved inside shade of the #1 receiver.  Our guys didn’t like it much because they couldn’t see the #1 receiver, but it forces them to trust their keys.

The first 3 steps are slow, on the third step they are planting their back foot, picking up, and rolling over somewhere – one of the 8 directions.

Basketball Slide

The Open Slide is sometimes called the Basketball Slide.  If you finally get that stud on the basketball team to come out for you, he’s going to already know how to do this.

Now you’ve got time to teach him how to really play football.  Just think, if your Corners stop backpedaling, they might learn to defeat a block and even… wait for it… TACKLE!  Yes, I know, Cornerbacks aren’t known for their physicality, but give it a shot.

You won’t be able to completely eliminate any back pedaling, but it is no longer crucial to the success of your defense.  To get you started, check ChiefPigskin.com for some drills like this Cover 3 drill now that you’ve got so much free time for Cornerback drills.

While I’m aware of the intricate differences between the Fly Sweep and Jet Sweep, from the defensive standpoint we’re going to consider them the same. You can add a comment and tell me why that’s wrong, I welcome it.

Rolling with Motion

One of the first things defensive coaches see when we look at the Jet Sweep (or Fly Sweep), is that we should just roll with that motion. Start in a 2-high safety look, and roll down to the side they motion to.

After all, if they’re doing it from Doubles, they’re going to wind up in Trips and you need another guy over there anyway.

Rolling with the motion is sound. It becomes tougher when they line up in Trips and jet sweep away from the Trips.  If you pre-roll to the Trips, when they go into Jet Motion, you’ll have to roll over the complete opposite way.  Instead, keep the 2-high shell.  This is one of the advantages of Quarters coverage and the Survivor Check.

Defending Counters

Once a team establishes the Jet Sweep, your Linebackers are bound to start getting distracted by the Jet Motion, and losing track of the backfield.  As the backers start flying to the motion, your opponent is getting ready to counter back away from the motion and burn you.

The first one is the Inside Trap off the Jet Sweep.  I’ve never understood why every Jet Sweep team isn’t running this.  I fail to see the Offensive Line offering much help to the Jet Sweep, so why not run this off the back side.  Check out this article on defending the trap from RUNCODHIT Football for more on stopping it.

Make sure to show this to your kids in practice.  The Middle Linebackers have to be ready to defend the Running Back and Quarterback, while your Outside Linebackers and Safeties deal with the Jet Sweep.

Every player needs to do their job on a good defense.  If your guys start to try to do other player’s jobs, you can bet the offense will take advantage.

Another counter is to have the QB keep off the back side of the sweep if the Defensive End is over anxious and the backers are flying. Make sure your guys are staying home.  Don’t try to defend the Jet Sweep with your Middle Backers and backside players!

The Jet Sweep can be a tough play to defend, with the offense getting a running start at the edge.  But make sure your players see plenty of it in practice, and that they stay on their own job.

Teams are also going to play action off of the Jet Sweep, obviously. Check this video at ChiefPigskin.com on Jet Sweep Play Action.

A couple of other things:  I’d like to thank the two people who have voted that they were NFL Coaches.  If you really are, I’m flattered.  If not, thanks because I’m going to start advertising this blog as being read by “Youth, High School, College and NFL coaches.”

Be sure to “LIKE” the Football-Defense Report on Facebook!

You’ve got the remote. A few assistants are scattered around the room. You are narrating the film like Ben Stein, while your assistants chime in with occasional comments. The players rarely say anything, except an outburst over a big hit.

Can’t you do better than this? I know you had to live through it and they should too. But are you using the limited football film study time that we have as wisely as you can?

Film Study Sheets

Create a football film study sheet for each position. Guide the players (and the coaches) in the direction they need to be going as they view the game film.

You want your guy to focus on his EMOLS Read and not the incredible moves that the running back has? Better ask him some qeustions about that Tackle or Tight End.

Have your players tell you who the guy they’re most focused on is, and what he does. Look at this alignment, does it tell you anything? Is he lazy when he’s not getting the ball? Does his butt sit back when he pulls?

Be sure to have the players note the best plays the offense runs. If they really get a good feel for the game, they should be able to tell you what that play is without any help. (Unless you get one of those teams who is a jack of all trades, master of none!)

Take note of jersey numbers. Is someone rotating? What does their rotation tell you? Often times we’ve found a back who rarely carries the ball, but is great catching out of the backfield, or blocking.

Be alert for changes in the Offensive Line, where cohesiveness as a unit is vital to success. Why did the change occur?

Look at where receiver routes are run. As much as pattern reading is in vogue, most of the time you’ll find receivers running routes and making catches on the hash, numbers, or sidelines, where we would have spot dropped in simpler times. If you can speed up your linebackers with this information, it is a benefit.

Group Players with their Coaches

Film sessions are no time for your guys to sit with their buddies, or for you to give a 30 minute monologue. Have the players sit with their position coach.

The goal is to have more of a running discussion in the group, with the coach guiding it. Most players don’t hate football film study, they hate sitting still and not talking. They want to watch football film, and learn from it, so we need to make that happen.

Putting players in these small groups is beneficial because they’ll be more engaged with their individual coaches, and also have someone in close proximity to them. If you have the means to put each position in their own area with their own position coach, then by all means do it – but we don’t.

Another good idea is to only have your two deep depth chart in the room. 6 or 8 linebackers in manageable, but you’ve got 15 guys in the room who play a total of four positions, its going to be tough.

Keep It Simple – and Short

Showing the entire game from an opponent has its advantages, certainly. But if you’ve got a specific message you want thep layers to get from football film study, set them up for success.

Find a selection of 10 plays that show specifically the problem that you want to fix, or illustrate the plan you’ll be implementing in this week’s game. Give players a visual of what they will see and, if available, how to stop it.

I’m not a fan of showing them the wrong way (particularly not repeatedly). Some coaches like to use bad technique to show their point, though. I just don’t want to even talk about it – don’t even address it as a possibility – when you are watching the other teams. Make corrections when you review your own football film.

Extra Football Film Study Sessions

Give your players all of the opportunity they need to study more film. If they want copies to take home, make it happen. If your program isn’t able to pay for lots of blank DVDs, then let the players bring them in. You can probably get each position group to go in on a stack of 100 DVD-R’s and they’ll be taken care of for the season.

Obviously it will help if you have a stack to burn all of those extra copies.

Open up film for players to view early in the morning, and after practice, as well. We should never limit the amount of film players can watch.

Whenever possible, sit in with your players as they watch extra film. Give them the remote, let them see what they want to see, but continue to guide their eyes to the key points.

Quiz Your Players

Give your players a quiz on Thursday after practice. You should be monitoring your coaching ability as much as their focus. Ask the 10 things that players really need to know. Those pieces of information that you’ve been hammering.

Ask the questions in a way that your players can answer. Remember that they are not coaches.

I’ve found that asking them what gap to go to can get some strange answers, while asking them to draw a line showing where they go on a blitz is more effective. Your kids are visual, and most of them learned what to do on the field, not in meetings. So ask them questions that way.

Quiz players on personnel, best plays, strong situational tendencies, and special packages or blitzes that you have developed for this week.

You’re not going to sit anyone for failing the test, but if they fail the test you need to sit down with them and find out why. You may find that they know the information, just not how to answer your quiz questions. Learn to write better quizzes.

If you find that everyone failed it, find out why. Did you not coach it right, or did you write a really bad quiz? Do not blame the players. It is your job to teach them.

Evaluate Your Football Film Study

At the end of the week, when the game is over, pull out your quiz. See if you were right, or if you missed some key points.

Don’t just throw away the film study you did all week at the end and assume you did it right. If your players didn’t seem to get it, you should be looking at what happened. And even if they did get it, you need to make sure you continue to repeat what you did for future success.

Take note of how the offense adapted to your team defense, in comparison to how they played everyone else. I know that by running a 3-man front this season, and in particular a 3-4 Defense, we won’t see many teams playing against a similar front. We will benefit greatly from learning how what they do against a 4-man front will compare to how they handle us.

If you pour yourself into preparation each week, and get your kids to buy into your game plan, you can be successful. Use film study in a more creative and specific way to get the full benefit though. Get your players to immerse themselves in the game week preparation and become an expert in their position in the plan.

For plenty of film to study (not of your opponents though, most likely) check out ChiefPigskin.com

But you’re the defensive coach. You’ve got to stop it. The question is how?

Don’t waste a lot of practice time on stopping a trick play. Talk through it in a meeting. Throw it out there once or twice during practice each day. But don’t waste the kid’s time with a 12 minute period on stopping the Double Reverse Pass.

Preparation

The responsibility for stopping a trick play is on you, the coach. Here are a few key points to stopping a trick football play with preparation:

1. Have rules built in to your defense. One good one is for the corners to never, EVER leave their receiver or zone until they know for sure the ball carrier has crossed the line of scrimmage. This helps against plays like the Toss Pass.
2. Be sure your linemen are watching the ball and playing to the whistle. Don’t get caught off guard just because things are unfolding strangely.
3. Study trick plays your opponent runs and look for the situation and and tip-offs players may give you that a trick is coming.

Practice

In practice, you want to throw the trick football plays out to your players, without spending an undue amount of time on defending them.

1. Introduce any trick plays your opponent runs up on the board during a meeting early in the week. Let the players know that these are a possibility at any time!
2. Show them the plays out on the field, being sure to note and differences in formation, personnel or situation that you have found in film study.
3. Run the play once or twice telling them that it is coming – so that they can have success in defending it.
4. Once they know the play, and how to defend it, just slip it into the practice script randomly throughout the week. Don’t overkill it, just once or twice will be plenty.
5. It isn’t a bad idea to throw a trick play out even in weeks where you may not have seen it on film. Just keep your kids honest.

Game Day

On game day, be sure to remind your kids when the situation you would expect a trick play comes up.

If you’re constantly bringing up a trick play though, you may be paralyzing your kids for a play that might not even happen.

Don’t forget that your ability to stop trick football plays doesn’t normally decide your game’s outcome. The outcome is decided by how well you take away what they do best.

Getting them to not overcommit and never assume anything, though, will prevent you from getting embarrassed by that play the OC drew up Thursday night at 1am in the Applebees bar.

For lots of football play ideas that aren’t tricks, be sure to check out ChiefPigskin.com!

You can get creative with your coverages in any defensive front. But the reality is, you are limited in coverages with the 46 Defense. Bear defense coverages are pretty well limited to Cover 0, Cover 1, and Cover 3.

Cover 1

The primary Bear Defense coverage is the Cover 1, with man coverage and one safety helping over the top. This allows a 5 man rush on the QB.

One of the features of Cover 1 in the 46 Defense is the bracket coverage on the Tight End. If the Tight End wants to release outside, the player lined up on his outside foot (Strong Safety in our diagram) will run with him, while the inside guy will rush the QB and contain the passer.

If the Tight End works for an inside release, as in a drag route or TE Pop Pass, the inside guy will handle him. The outside player is now free to rush.

Cover 0

The next coverage for the Bear Defense is a Cover 0, Man Coverage with no help over top and a 6 man rush. All 6 players lined up on the line will rush, with the Free Safety taking the Tight End.

Cover 3

Finally, the Cover 3 is the natural fit for zone coverage in the Bear Defense.

The Free Safety and the two Corners handle the deep 1/3′s, which is pretty standard in Cover 3.

You have the option of making this a 4 under, 3 deep coverage with a 4 man rush or a 3 under, 3 deep coverage more closely associated with Fire Zone blitzes and 5 man pressure.

How you want to create the 3 under, 3 deep (or any zone coverage out of the Bear Defense) is going to depend on your personnel. You may not have an End who can drop off, so you’d need to adapt.

Thoughts on 46 Defense Coverages

Just an opinion here on the Bear Defense, and remember that I’ve never run it. You’re not running this because you want to run a safe, sound Cover 3 defense with a “bend but don’t break” philosophy.

The Bear Defense is an atttack style defense. It is for causing havoc in the backfield. Man coverage is best for quick throws, because your guys are playing closer to the receivers.

If you’re going to run the Bear Defense, you better be forcing quick throws with tons of pressure from some bad dudes on the defensive front. If your plan is to run the 46 Defense with Cover 3 behind it all season as your base front, I’m going to suggest you rethink your philosophy!

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The defense has its basis in the old 5-2 Double Eagle front and is easy to adapt from the 4-3 Defense. It is an 8-man, run-stopping from that works well with man coverages and with Cover 3.

Every defensive package should have some sort of 46 Defense – or Bear Front – in its package, and it isn’t hard to add to your package because it works with Odd Front and Even Front packages.

Alignment

All of my information on the 46 Defense comes from Rex Ryan and Jeff Walker’s Coaching Football’s 46 Defense book.  I’ve used variations of the front with different packages, but never as the base defense.

The alignment of the 46 Defense centers around the 3-0-3 alignment in the middle.  This means we have a Defensive Lineman aligned on the outside shoulder of each of the Guards, and a head up Nose Guard.  In the diagram above I’m showing the 43 Defense adapted to the Bear Front, where the Strong End slides down to a 3-tech.

I refer to any front with this 3-0-3 alignment as a Bear Front, mainly because of the effect it has on the offensive blocking schemes.  The biggest advantage of this front is its almost impossible to create double teams, especially on your Nose Guard.  If you have a dominant defensive lineman that can play that 0-technique Nose position, this is a big advantage.

The weak side Defensive End stays in a 5-Technique.  On the strong side, one Linebacker is going to walk up on the inside foot of the Tight End while another Linebacker or Safety is going to walk up on the outside foot of the Tight End.  Who you want to do this is going to be based on your own personnel, so don’t get caught up in the letters!

The two Linebackers remaining are going to line up in 40-techniques, 5 yards off the ball and head up over the Offensive Tackles.

Run Fits

There’s no better front for stopping the run than the 46 Defense.  Here are the run responsibilities for the front 8:

Nose Guard:  The 0-tech nose is going to handle the play side A-Gap.  He’s a 2-gap player.

Tackles: The two 3-tech Tackles handle the B-Gaps.  They’re attacking the outside shoulder of the Guard.

Weak End: The weak side end plays a 5-technique and handles the outside and contains the play.  He needs to hold the point on that tackle and not let the B-gap widen.  Its more likely that he’ll just be forcing plays to the sideline than necessarily turning them back inside.

Sam Linebacker:  The Sam Linebacker walks up on the inside foot of the Tight End and hammers him, reading the footwork of the Tackle with his eyes.  If the Tackle goes down, he’s going to squeeze down expecting a pulling Guard or Fullback.

Strong Safety: The Safety (or whoever you choose) is walked up on the outside foot of the Tight End.  He’s hammering him and controlling the outside.  He is the box/contain player on the strong side.

Linebackers: The 40-tech Linebackers are reading backfield action.  All of the gaps are controlled except the A-Gap the Nose does not control. On outside flow, the backside linebacker works over to play cut-back to that open A-Gap.

The Play side linebacker plays off of the Defensive End or Safety, expecting him to either force the play back inside or force it to bounce.  He needs to make this guy right.

On hard flow, inside flow runs the backers are filling up any open space.  There’s just no real bubble to run an Iso to, and defending Power and Counter is going to be based off of how the player being kicked out plays it.  The DL will be looking to wrong arm, so plays should bounce.

Free Safety:  We need a stud at Free Safety.  Someone who can play center field on Cover 1 or Cover 3, but also run the alleys and clean up outside runs.  Here’s a simple Alley Press drill from Coach Albaugh at ChiefPigskin.com.

Coverages

As I mentioned, the coverage for the 46 Defense is mostly going to be Cover 0, Cover 1 or Cover 3 – which should be the case with any 8-man front defense.  You can come up with all of the exotic looks you want, but that’s going to be the basic look.  Click here for 46 Defense Coverages.

Do you run the 46 Defense?  Add a comment and give us some tips!

Step 1: Conditioning Your Defense for Toughness
Step 2: Building Toughness in the Weight Room
Step 3: Equipping your Defense to Play Tough
Step 4: Tackling Angles for Tough Defense
Step 5: Defeating Blocks for Defensive Toughness
Step 6: High Intensity, Full Contact Football Practice
Step 7: Run a Tough Offense to Toughen your Defense
Step 8: Aggressive Play Calling for a Tough Defense
Step 9: Limited Contact Practices
Step 10: Award Tough Play on Defense

I’m an adult. I’m a professional. And I like getting cheesy little awards for my work. Seriously. I’ve never received one in teaching, but I think I’d like to. In my current job, I get little certificates when I do a particularly good job though. Its nice, it makes me feel good. I feel funny saying that to strangers.

So you coach kids, and you don’t give them any helmet stickers? They’re cheap. They look good on helmets when a kid has a lot of them. Kind of intimidating, even. And they’re a good motivator!

Motivate your kids to play tough defense by awarding the right kinds of play.

Reward your defensive football players for group accomplishments, such as a shut out or big goal line stand.

Also reward individual accomplishments, but steer the focus more towards “effort plays” than big hits, which are often the result of luck.

Every coach and every team has different awards. Here is just a short list of some ideas for awards to encourage tough defensive play:

Gang Tacklers: When a group of players swarm to the ball to make a big tackle. You know the one’s, where the ball carrier is completely swallowed up! Each player involved in the pile gets a sticker. No penalties for getting there late, especially if its your back side corner jumping in on the pile at the whistle. He was hustling!

Never Give Up: For running a guy down when it looked like he was gone. A touchdown saving tackle can mean a lot to your team. That never say die attitude is what a tough defense needs an we want to encourage it.

Seek & Destroy: This is for the guy who destroys a blocker or two with great technique, and comes off to make the play. He refuses to let anything come between him and the ball. Not an average play!

Max Effort: Similar to the previous two awards, a guy who just refuses to be stopped. May be an award you give out to one player each game, the guy who’s motor was running for 48 (or 60) minutes.

Leading the Charge: Another award that goes out to one guy each game. The inspiration for the team effort. Not just that vocal team leader, though he’ll get it at times. Another one is the guy who has to come in for an injured starter, who hasn’t played much, but comes in ready to go and does a great job filling in. Special Teams guys, like your “Wedge Buster” could get this too.

I’ve always found it funny how much guys get excited about these awards. I also know that I kept the last helmet sticker I got in high school in my wallet until I lost that wallet several years later. Awards for your players are a good motivator and one you should definitely be using!

If you’re not giving out awards right now, consider doing it. If you’re giving them out for stats, that’s fine – I’d think about adding some other awards that don’t show up it he stats sheet though.

Leave a Reply below and let us know what awards you give out to your defense!

Step 1: Conditioning Your Defense for Toughness
Step 2: Building Toughness in the Weight Room
Step 3: Equipping your Defense to Play Tough
Step 4: Tackling Angles for Tough Defense
Step 5: Defeating Blocks for Defensive Toughness
Step 6: High Intensity, Full Contact Football Practice
Step 7: Run a Tough Offense to Toughen your Defense
Step 8: Aggressive Play Calling for a Tough Defense
Step 9: Limited Contact Practices
Step 10: Award Tough Play on Defense

There comes a point in the season when banging heads in practice is counter-productive. It comes for every team, regardless of talent or ability.

If you know your players can tackle and play tough on Friday or Saturday, then its time to start letting their bodies recover in practice.

While I don’t agree with High School or College teams doing this early in the season (young players are going to be inexperienced and need more full-contact work), some NFL teams go light on contact from the very beginning.

The reason you can do this is muscle memory. Eventually your guys just know, when I get close, I bring the hips, shoot the hands, run the feet, grab cloth and finish. We don’t need to do it over and over again. We already know who the hitters are!

Whiz Mode

Last season was the first year that I was on a staff that really used “Whiz Mode” effectively. I don’t think we ever truly committed to it, but it was still very valuable.

As a side note, we started using it because we had two practices and a scrimmage scheduled with Butler County Community College in Kansas, a perennial power in Junior College football with numerous National Championships. They do nothing but Whiz Mode in their practices despite being a punishing football team on both offense and defense.

If you haven’t used Whiz Mode (and many of you probably have, but under a different name), here’s a short description:

1. Players are full speed and live at all times, except on the tackle.
2. Defensive players run through the tackle every time. They approach the ball carrier at the correct approach angles and with proper body position to fit the tackle.
3. At the point of contact, the tackler works off to the correct fit side and tags the hips of the ball carrier, running through the play.
4. The ball carrier continues running. The rest of the defense is in pursuit angles and continue to tag the ball carrier to the whistle.

One additional thing that I’ve seen before is after the initial tackle, the ball carrier keeps running and pursuing defenders are working at stripping the ball. I saw this at at Coastal Carolina practice a couple of years ago and it was really effective.

Injury Prevention & Recovery

The obvious advantages here for making your defense tougher are keeping your best players healthy and letting all the guy’s bodies recover between games late in the season.

The sooner you can get to this point in your practices, the better. For some teams it may be the end of camp, for others it maybe week 8 or 9.

Another Point of View

I’ll also add something else here that we don’t like to admit, but is a fact of life. Some players don’t love football. And they may be your best athletes. Around week 7, 8 or 9 of the season, they’re pissed. Their body hurts and you keep blowing that %$^*ing whistle and yelling AGAIN! The way the season ends, and particularly the many days of practice, will be what sticks in their mind when they decide whether or not to come back out again next season.

We coach football because we love the game. Its hard for us to understand how such a gifted athlete could be so miserable playing it. But we need him out there, so make it as fun for him as possible, and for God’s sake stop killing him with Oklahoma drills in early November.

Check out ChiefPigskin.com for more ideas on
practice planning, drills, and schemes for your football team.

Step 1: Conditioning Your Defense for Toughness
Step 2: Building Toughness in the Weight Room
Step 3: Equipping your Defense to Play Tough
Step 4: Tackling Angles for Tough Defense
Step 5: Defeating Blocks for Defensive Toughness
Step 6: High Intensity, Full Contact Football Practice
Step 7: Run a Tough Offense to Toughen your Defense
Step 8: Aggressive Play Calling for a Tough Defense
Step 9: Limited Contact Practices
Step 10: Award Tough Play on Defense

When putting together a game plan, you need to know what your play calling style is. If you spend a lot of time planning elaborate blitz schemes, but rarely use them, you’re wasting your time.

One of the first things I learned about defensive football was that you have to decide whether you are a conservative, “Bend but don’t Break” guy, or an aggressive and attacking style of coach.

By being more aggressive, you can create some excitement for your football players.

Reasons for Attacking

By attacking the offense with a variety of fronts, blitzes, line games, and coverages, you are going to be able to dictate to the offense.

Defenses that sit back in a base front and rarely change allow the Offense to search for weakness. In addition, the kids are rarely changing what they do. While this prevents you from having missed assignments, your team may not play with the same excitement that they otherwise would.

We want the kids to have fun. And we want to confuse the offense with a variety of looks and blitzes. By attacking, we can confuse blocking schemes, and force quick decisions by the Quarterback.

What Makes an Attack Style Play Caller

You don’t have to blitz on every down to be an attack-style play caller. You do have to force the offense to think about what your defense will be doing.

On offense, balance is not a 50% run, 50% pass tendency. A balanced offense simply forces the Defense to commit only 50% of its resources to stopping the run, and 50% to stopping the pass. And if they over commit to one or the other, a balanced offense makes them pay.

On defense, an aggressive defense makes the offense unsure whether there will be a 6-man blitz with 0 Coverage or a Cover 3 zone with movement on the defensive line.

Aggressive defense should have balance. Use base defenses, other fronts, line movements, man blitzes, and zone blitzes to keep the Offense on their toes.

Click here to watch Coach Vieselmeyer of Valor Christian (Highlands Ranch, CO) talks about one of their Zone Blitz schemes at Chief Pigskin.com

Cautions for Attack-Style Play Calling

Aggressive play callers must have a purpose. Don’t just call a bunch of blitzes at random to make the offense guess. Know what part of the offensive attack you need to stop, and how you can do that with aggressive play calls.

Aggressive defensive teams need to study their opponent. It requires more scouting to know what to call and when to call it than if you simply sit in your base defense.

If your team is undisciplined, or exhibits poor fundamentals like tackling, you can be in a lot of trouble by taking big risks. Then again, you’re probably not winning any championships if your team can’t tackle – so have fun, call what you want!

Best Defenses for Attacking

Sometimes I’ll hear coaches ask what the best defense is for blitzing. You can blitz out of any defense, any time. But the unquestioned champion for ease of install and ability to call any blitz and any time is the 3-5-3 Defense.

The 4-2-5, 4-3 and 3-4 Defenses are all great defenses for creating blitzes. I prefer Zone Blitzing out of the 4-3 Defense because of the angles created by the initial alignment. The 3-4 gives you the same flexibility that the 3-5-3 does of not having to drop linemen to Zone Blitz.

Of course, you can run man blitzes out of anything. Just send your guys and lock up on everyone else. Hang a Free Safety back there for some added insurance in Cover 1.

Some defenses are not designed for attacking. The 5-2 Defense is probably not ideal, though it isn’t to say that you can’t do it. Since I only have a minimal understanding of the Bear Front, I wouldn’t think of it as an attack-style defense – though its hard to say that the Bears defenses of old were not attacking.

1. Coaching the 3-5-3 Defense by Thomas Cousins is the most popular book for a reason. Cousins does a great job explaining the 3-5 Defense and how to create more than 150 types of pressure. It is a simple and effective defense, and an excellent football coaching book.

2. Football’s Eagle and Stack Defenses by Ron Vanderlinden. I think of myself as an intelligent guy, but I don’t understand Vanderlinden’s stuff. Not after two readings of the book and listening to him at a clinic. He’s like the Cerebral Assassin of defensive football coaching. I gave up, but I encourage you to give it a shot. The defense is a 4-3 defense, and there’s a ton of detail in the book. Don’t let my simple mind deter you.

3. Football Scouting Methods: This is the one that I didn’t even know existed. Apparently it was pretty popular in its time, written by Steve Belichick, and is even more so now. I’m ordering a copy so I can find out what it’s all about. Its available in reprinted paperback for under $10.

4. Coaching Football’s 46 Defense by Rex Ryan. You would never guess what an entertaining guy Coach Ryan is from reading this book, but it is still a great one. Everyone should have the Bear in your package, whether you base out of an Odd or Even front. And the defensive line techniques described in the book are fantastic, and can be applied to any defense. And if you run the 46 defense as your base front, and haven’t read this… I have no idea what to tell you. Get it. Excellent book on football coaching.

5. Coaching Football’s 3-3-5 Defense by Leo Hand. I don’t think I’ve ever recommended this book anywhere, mainly because Cousins has a better Odd Stack book. But it was the first 3-3-5 book I read, even though I chose to do it differently. I guess a lot of folks pick it up when they get the Cousins book. If I had to read one it would be Cousins’ Coaching the 3-5-3 Defense, but this one is by no means a bad read.

The links to these football coaching books are all affiliate links, so if you decide to click on it and buy the book, I get a cut. About 50 cents.