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Circuit Drills Emphasize Repetition, Range of Motion and Reaction to Improve Your Special Teams Play.by: Nick WhitworthSpecial Teams Coordinator Central Washington University © More from this issue Our staff at Central Washington University understands the importance and value of the kicking game in each contest. We treat each special team’s preparation with the same enthusiasm, intensity, and creativity as our offense and defense. To do it right, we must train our special teams players in the same way. Preparing players for their special team roles, however, presents some unique challenges. Consider the following:
The drills we use include elements of reaction. We don’t want our players to just run through a set of cones or a stationary body to develop their technique. We want to put them “On Edge.” In each drill, we train our players to see and feel certain movements and react with appropriate technique. Reactions, like everything we do, can be sharpened with a great number of repetitions. This process also increases the aggressiveness of our players on game day. We look at a single player’s responsibility on a given special team from start to finish. Take the kickoff for example. We examine the path of a coverage player from the kick to the tackle, then identify what we feel is the most critical phase. In this scenario, we believe that if our kickoff coverage player can beat the block of the kickoff return front line player, we will have good kickoff coverage. In our “avoid” drill, we stripped out all of the other phases of kickoff coverage and have focused just on the 15-20 yards where our coverage player will battle the opponent’s front line blocker. The next thing we look at is, “What are the possible scenarios that our kickoff coverage player can encounter in this phase?” We identify three types of blocks that he must be able to defeat. Once we have incorporated these looks into the drill, we coach the coverage player on what technique to use in each scenario. With enough repetitions, our coverage players become very sudden in their reactions to each situation. We want players to be “full speed confident” on game day. During this five minutes, the offensive line, tight ends, defensive line and specialists will work on field goal protection vs. field goal block (Diagram 1). We get anywhere from 8-10 kicks in before the period is over. As a change up, we also use this station to get our kickoff return back line players (TEs, DEs, DTs) to catch sky kicks from the jugs machine (Diagram 2). These are repetitions they will need come game day. Diagram 1. Diagram 2. The skill groups are broken into four stations. We organize these groups so the numbers of players are close to equal at the four stations. In each two-minute station, we work on two skills before rotating to the next station. I know what you’re thinking, “How can we possibly get enough reps at something in two minutes to do any good?” Consider that there are 120 seconds in 2 minutes. All of the drills we do, at most, take 4 seconds to complete. That’s 30 reps divided by 8 players. That’s 3-4 repetitions per player in 2 minutes. Some of our drills have two and three players going at once. In these drills the repetitions double. As the practices add up, the reps begin to add up until our players have done a specific task a great number of times. Like any position individual period, you can tailor it to fit whatever you need. We have many drills that we may use from time to time depending on what our staff feels our players need. We focus on four specific drills that we incorporate into our “mini-circuit” everyday. We call them our “core” drills. Our core drills are advanced special teams drills that focus on the critical points of the kickoff return, punt return, and coverage aspects of the special teams game.
It is important to note that our front line players are not actually trying to block the coverage player. Rather, they are simply trying to give some body presence to the look. At cone #1, the player will execute a profile style block on a flat path at the coverage player. This will give the coverage player the feel that he has beat the block with speed. At cone #2, the blocker will be taking an angle to get in front of the coverage player. He will open up his hips to the defender and put his arms up to simulate a set up block. This will force the coverage player to use a quick swim technique to clear the hands of the blocker. At the #3 cone, the blocker will retreat to the deepest cone and execute a “Flip and Tune” technique on the coverage player. The coverage player will feel the returner directly behind the block and execute a “Press and 2 Gap” technique. FRONT LINE PLAYER:
If the coverage player tries to cross his face before contact, the front line player will adjust his set by sliding to the side of the return until he re-establishes his playside leverage. We refer to this sequence as “tuning” back to leverage. At the cone, our front line player strikes and “finishes in a fit” position. If the coverage player attempts to run by the blocker (attacks behind him), the front line player will turn, get on the hip of the defender, and block him out of the return. We refer to this action as “ride by vs. run by.” If the front line player can’t get his hands on the defender, we instruct him to “recover and rip by.” The front line player doesn’t know what look he is going to see until he flips around. This forces him to have his eyes in the correct area and react the correct way, with the appropriate technique. COVERAGE PLAYER: Diagram 4: Flip and Tune Drill If we want the coverage player to cross the front line player’s face early, then we tell him to attack landmark #3. He will break off the second cone and attack the far left cone. Once he makes contact with the blocker, he will work to cross his face. If we want the coverage player to run by the front line player, we tell him to attack landmark #1. He will break off the second cone and attack straight down the line.
RETURNER: On the whistle, the coverage players attack at full speed with their eyes on the returner. We coach them to stay in their lanes until the returner breaks. We want to close the distance between our coverage and the returner as fast as possible. Each defender has a leverage responsibility on the returner. Our middle player heads up the returner. Both outside players are responsible for keeping the ball carrier inside and in front of them. Through the course of this drill, we want our coverage players to know where they are and where their help is. The coverage players must see and feel where the returner is going and react accordingly. We teach our coverage “force, fill, and fold” principals for attacking the ball carrier. We see our coverage players attacking a returner that is breaking to their left. Our outside defender closest to the returner becomes the “force” player. His focal point is the playside peck of the returner. He is responsible for forcing the ball carrier back to his help. He cannot allow the returner to get outside of him. The head up player now becomes the “fill” player. His focal point becomes the near hip of the returner. He can now aggressively attack the ball carrier because he knows he has help on both sides of him. Our outside player away from the returner becomes our “fold” player. As he confirms the returner is working away, he will shimmy down, glide, and fold. We coach our fold players to not follow their own color jersey and to take a pursuit angle to get on top of the returner. Once we have fit up on the returner, the drill is complete. It is important to note that this drill can be run at different tempos. In our circuits, our emphasis is the players’ reps, range of motion, and reaction. We prefer to keep the contact low and stop the drill once we have achieved the correct fit position on the returner. But if contact or tackling is your emphasis, this drill can be conducted using “thud” or even “live” tempo. The “three-man tackle” drill is an extremely effective way to develop your kick and punt coverage units. We are constantly seeing it show up on game day. Our “finish drill” is a punt return emphasis drill (Diagram 6). This drill simulates the end phase of a punt return. In this drill, we focus on two areas. First, teaching our punt return players to be in the correct relationship to the coverage player. Second, training our return players to react to the coverage player and block him with the appropriate technique. There are five participants in this drill. There are two punt return players, two punt coverage players, and one returner. Our punt return players (O) align on the inside of the starting cone with their eyes on the punt coverage players (X). The returner is in the middle of the drill facing the other players. A coach will communicate to the returner what look to give for each repetition. The coach will either tell the returner to stand still or run vertical.
As the defender works back to the returner, the blocker works back as well. The punt return player will work to force the coverage player back behind him and away from the returner. In scenario two, the coverage player is running recklessly toward the finish cone. In this situation, our return player will feel the coverage player sprinting at full speed and will execute a “rip by” technique at the finish cone. This technique is just like it sounds. Our return players are going to dip and rip the inside shoulder of the defender just like they we’re scraping paint off of a wall. This technique is very useful when a return player finds himself out of position against his defender. Rather than blocking him in the back, we teach him to “rip by” to avoid the penalty. We keep the space small and the contact light so that it fits with our circuit philosophy. We can also run this drill at “live tempo” and get great competitive repetitions. Either way, the “finish drill” is a great way of training our players to react and attack with the proper blocking technique. More Articles on this subject are on AmericanFootballMonthly.com Develop Your Dynamic Identity – June, 2013 |
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