During today’s blog post, I’m going to share with you a handful of football drills that every linebacker should run through on a regular basis.
Around-the-Bag Drill
The main idea of this drill is to prevent overextension. We want to be able to make our second move first.
The offensive man will initiate the drill. He’s going to move to his right and come halfway down the bag.
When the defensive man makes contact with him, it’s going to be a race to the other side of the bag. He’s going to go as fast he can to make the defensive player better. He will go one, two, three, four times around the bag.
Remind your players that they can’t get into an overextended position. They want to bring their feet with them; now it’s a race to the other side to recover. And then on the fourth one, we want to take him five yards.
Around-the-Bag Drill Variation
Another version of the around-the-bag drill is to place four bags on the ground.
The offensive man will initiate the drill by moving into the first alley. Once the defensive man makes contact, it’ll be a race going into the second, to the third, and to the fourth alley. He gives himself up in the fourth alley.
The defensive man, as he moves into that alley, wants bring his feet with him. He doesn’t want to get overextended. He wants to keep his shoulders square, his head up.
Then on the last one, he’s going to push, accelerate, and take him back five yards.
Cone Drill
One of the biggest challenges in coaching linebackers is ensuring that the players maintain a good hitting position and they can bend their knees and be in that proper position at all times. So we do this little football drill.
On the command “go,” the linebacker will come up and pick up the cone and bend his knees as if he’s recovering a fumble. He’ll go around the bag and put the cone down. Then he’ll go to the net bag, pick up the cone, go around, put the cone down.
When he puts the last cone down, he will run laterally, touch two shields that are on the ground, come back, pick up the cone, put it down, pick up the cone, and put it down. That finishes the drill.
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