Tackling Drills Without Pads

What can help develop a player to be a better tackler? One thing a player can do to be a better tackler is to know their surroundings. In knowing their surroundings, I’m talking about the scheme, and not only their fits, but the fits of players on either side of them. One of the biggest things we forget as coaches is to teach our players where their help is. Knowing where their help is allows them to play faster and attack in proper angles. Not knowing where your help is creates a slower, timid, or cautious player, because they are trying not to make a mistake or miss a tackle. 

A lot of players make mistakes because they don’t know where their help is coming from on the field. Players think they have to make every play or tackle because they have no idea where other defenders are. This puts stress on the tackler and creates being out of position to tackle offensive players. Even defenders with great athletic ability and skill can get themselves in bad positions. The players who do not possess that type of ability will miss a lot of tackles and open up even more space for good skilled offensive players. 

Offensive spacing and more highly skilled offensive players on the field is why drill work in tackling fundamentals is a must for players that defend. Today’s offensive game plans are designed around putting defenders in space and getting their best player versus the defense’s worst player. Today, poor tackling can cost your team a few games a year. Like some of you, we can’t have heavy contact purely due to numbers and injury prevention. At the high school level, many of you don’t have two platoon football. The fundamental drill work I use is with contact or non-contact practice and sometimes non-contact drill work is a must. 

I start my players with a stance and start. I teach a proper stance to create good footwork and body control. Good footwork is key to a linebacker or any defender. Good footwork helps to prevent poor power and change of direction. I believe you should hit home with this daily even if you’re not drilling it. The power position (power base) is the bending at the ankles and knees, and having the chest and eyes forward. The power position (power base) also includes having proper foot width to create a balance and the ability to strike, uncoil, or move in an opposite direction quickly. All the drill work can add tackling at the end of each one. We are always working on body positions, foot fire, foot placement, balance, uncoiling, and change of direction.

The drill I like to start our day off with is a drill I call the 1-2 Drill. It’s simply a command drill where we will start on a line in a good stance straddling the line with both feet. On the command “one”, the individual player will run out of his stance staying in a good power base straddling the line. On the command “two”, the individual player will snap his hips and turn square. Facing me, the player will shuffle in a power position with his feet on that line. Each player in that line will release on the number command. After the “two” command, they finish with shuffling. If we want to do multiple movements with the command, we go to the 1-2-1 Drill. 

In the 1-2-1 drill, once the player hears the number command, they flip back and forth from a power position run to a power position shuffle back to a run. You can tag 3 on to it and, on a “three” command, the player flips their hips off the “two” command and accelerates vertically, trying to stay square and be explosive without wasted or extra steps. All this works on their power base, the ability to be explosive, the ability to break down, and then come to balance.  This drill takes 2-3 minutes. 

The next drill off the 1-2-1 Drills is the BBD / Ball and Bag Drills (Photos 1-3). This drill requires a few agile bags and a cut ball. We start this drill with the players stepping over the bags staying in a power base, trying not to get air under their feet and being bent in power angles. At the end of the last bag, they must press and clear the cut ball that is pushed at them. They can clear off a certain direction on their own. We are looking for proper bend and a good power base position. We want good speed but proper power base through the bags and not upright running. When clearing the ball, we want to see the hands explode from the hips and proper feet shuffle to get back vertical. Sometimes we will allow the players to rip or swat the ball to utilize an escape or pass rush move with their hands. This drill encompasses the ability to bend, use quick feet, uncoil, target, and strike. This drill takes two-three minutes.

Another drill we practice is the Zig-Zag Drill (Photos 4-6). This drill requires a few agile bags. We align the bags in front of the players but stagger them laterally facing them. We generally use 4 to 5 bags. The player will press the edge of the bag in front of them. From that point, the player will step at the edge of the bag with his inside foot and hand. We want him to see it as attacking with his lead arm and leg, like pressing an isolation blocker. We also want him to rip upward at the bags edge (palms should be to the sky creating an upper-cut motion like ripping through an outside shoulder). 

The bags are placed so that the player is switching his lead arm and leg at each bag. We are looking for the ability to sink their hips, and change their feet according the proper block shedding technique. We look for an ability to lean and generate power through the hips while ripping the arm upward. I look to see how much hip flexibility they have or is the player an upright stiff player. We can’t fix stiffness but we can work on it. This drill also takes 2-3 minutes.

One of the last drills we do in our daily tackling techniques is the Piano Drill (Photos 7-9). This drill requires about half the number of agile bags for the number of players in the drill to move quickly in two groups. It starts with a player in front of an agile bag aligned the long way and their feet straddling the bag. We use one whistle for each movement and there are four movements.

The first whistle will get their feet chopping from out of their stance. We are looking for good foot fire close to the ground, a good bend, and chest and eyes up. We also want them to sustain a good power base position. The second whistle will get their hips thrusting back and forth while maintaining a foot fire. We are looking for the ability to uncoil at their hips or roll their hips while bending from the power base position (the straddling of the bags keeps their feet apart with good width and power base). The third whistle has them shoot their hands through as they press upward at the time their hips are thrusting forward. We are trying to create reaction and timing with their hand strikes and hip thrust while their feet are firing. The fourth whistle is the finish. They will run through the end of the bag after they roll their hips, fire hands through in an upper-cut action, and finish extended on their toes. We can also do the same drill individually.

The Downhill Piano Drill (Photos 10-12) is a downhill running action with 3-4 staggered agile bags. The player uncoils and then coils back in a controlled quick backpedal. He then shuffles and uncoils again downhill. On the last bag, the player will run through and finish just like the first Piano Drill. We are looking for all the actions of tackling performed in one motion but we also look at who can control their body at the end of each bag before the last one. We refer to “Piano On” when the agile bag is straddled and “Piano Off” when the drill is performed inside the agile bag. This drill takes 5-6 minutes. 

About the Author: Deion Melvin enters his fifth season this fall as defensive coordinator at Lindenwood University. He previously coached at Ball State University. Melvin has also had coaching stints at Bowling Green, Georgia Southern, Missouri State, and Western Illinois.  He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Western Illinois in 1994.