Passing Improvement By Colloquial Folklore

 This passing “expert” never played a down at the quarterback position on any regular football team at any level, unless one counts informal pick-up games and touch football. Yet there was one interesting

factor surrounding his efforts to improve passing efficiency of players who did play the quarterback position. The advice often worked. Here’s

his gems of colloquial passing folklore:

1.  Are passes sailing over receivers’ heads or dying at the last second? If you customarily place tips of the four fingers on the laces, and thumb under the ball, try reversing this procedure, placing thumb on the laces and fingers under the ball.

2.  If, despite having an above-average size hand, your passes still wobble, try placing the index finger on the rear tip of the ball.

3.  Generally good arm strength notwithstanding, are you coming up with an occasional poor throw for no apparent reason? If you employ a conventional three-quarter overhand arm throwing motion, try bringing the ball up, Johnny Unitas style, and experiment with a more straight overhand delivery.

4.  Once our passing wizard, then an assistant coach, took some snaps in practice to demonstrate some long forgotten concept to players. The head coach, standing nearby, suddenly exploded in amazement, “You’ve got the wrong hand on top! You’re not left handed!” I responded, “I know that coach, it just feels more natural to put my left hand on top.” He responded: “You must think you’re Otto Graham.”

Out of respect for the head coach I shut up, but was tempted to point out that if one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time put his non-passing hand on top, then why couldn’t little old me do so too?

The pros and cons of different quarterback hand positions while under center has been the subject of several doctoral dissertations, so a short journal article is hardly the place to reopen this debate. Suffice to say, the late, great Mr. Graham’s philosophy might be worth a try, especially if a quarterback is struggling.

5.  “Looking off” a defender and executing a pump fake are two important quarterback skills. Everyone will agree with this statement.

However, how many coaches have a quarterback specifically practice these skills? One way to do so is with a four stage progression.

First stage has our passer executing each skill at game speed, but alone, using a pantomine format. Stage two finds the quarterback

throwing to receivers after looking off or pump faking, but with no

other players involved. The third stage involves practicing the two skills amid two full teams, but with no contact allowed. The fourth and final practice level employs perfecting the two skills during a full practice scrimmage.

6.  Many teams include rollout passing in their offensive repertoire. If this be the case, coaches often take running and throwing to be normal human motor skills, hardly worth practice time. After all, young athletes have been running since age two, so why practice the obvious? While just plain running may indeed be an activity hardly in need of practice, the correct way of coordinating running and

throwing is often in need of work.  

Take the baseball skill of executing a pivot at second base and throwing to first for a double play. It gets practiced and practiced,

even at the major league level. Throwing a football on the run should be no different. This is especially true for a right handed quarterback running to his left and passing, or a left handed quarterback running to his right and throwing. To illustrate this concept, readers may want to view NFL Films that show John Elway rolling left and executing a long, accurate pass on the run. His footwork is something to behold! If you and I are going to emulate Elway’s skill, we better practice. And practice some more.

So these are some gems of passing wisdom. Just like the spring tonic or full moon corn planting, the would-be advice giver cannot always justify why they may work. But since some of them apparently worked for Unitas, Graham and Elway, they might just work for you.