AFM RSS Feed Follow Us on Twitter       
AMERICAN FOOTBALL MONTHLY THE #1 RESOURCE FOR FOOTBALL COACHES
ABOUT |  CONTACT |  ADVERTISE |  HELP  



   User Name    Password 
      Password Help





Article Categories


AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Coaching In Denmark (Part II)

© More from this issue

Click for Printer Friendly Version          

By Wayne Anderson

 

   In this next installment of coaching in Denmark, I would like to share more about the teaching aspect of coaching a team like the Odense Swans. The first thing you must remember about a team like the Swans is that what you can truly do as a coach depends on how many coaches you have on your staff and how many players consistently participate in practice.

   In Denmark, our season is divided into two different parts: April to late June and August to early October. During July and early August, Danish families typically take their summer vacations, so there is no formal football activities scheduled at this time. As a general rule, most clubs have better player participation during the first half of the season then the second half.

   Because of the split season and the amount of players who attend practice, you have to keep your offensive, defensive and special teams schemes as basic as possible. The reason to keep things basic is to have the limited amount of players who attend practice prepared to play multiple positions.

   Our defensive scheme is a 3-4-4. We play with three down linemen, four linebackers at a depth of four yards and four defensive backs straight across at a depth of eight yards. We play two base coverages in our defense - cover four and cover three when we blitz an outside defender (linebackers or safety). Because of the way we have designed our defense, we can plug players into any of the positions. This is a great benefit because you do not always know who will show up for practice or games.

   We also take a basic approach to what we do on offense. We are primarily a one-back, multiple formation system. Our passing game is based on the basic nine-route passing tree that is used by most teams. We have added additional pass route concepts to complement our passing tree routes. In order to take advantage of the defense, we will occasionally tag some routes. Our screen game is made up of a middle screen and a bubble screen.

  We use two six-man base pass protections in our offense. Our primary pass protection is a combination of man protection to the front side and gap protection to the back side. Our other pass protection is a five-man slide protection with our single back going play side to block the end man on the line of scrimmage and our offensive linemen sliding to protect the back side gaps. We use this as a “Get Out of Jail Card” so that if an opponent starts stunting and blitzing, we still have all six gaps blocked. This also keeps things as simple as possible for our young offensive line. Another way that we help our offensive line is by using a sprint pass protection. We teach our sprint pass protection the same way as zone run blocking except that we emphasize not going down field.

   Our running game is based on zone run blocking principles. As a staff, we decided to use this scheme because of our young offensive line. Our goal was to make our blocking schemes as simple as possible. The zone/zone read is our basic running play. We will also move our skilled players around to use different running plays, but we use the same zone blocking scheme.

   Now that I have covered our offensive and defensive philosophies, let me share how they are implemented. My teaching approach with the players in Denmark is no different then my first days as a high school assistant coach in 1989. My first coaching position was as a head freshmen football coach. Like any freshmen team, you have to first evaluate your players’ skill level and knowledge of the game. The great thing about European players is that they always want to learn more about the game. There really are no football camps in most European countries for players to attend in order to perfect their skills. Players gain most of their knowledge about American football by watching NFL games and a limited number of college games. Because of this limited exposure, a coach must break down everything to the basic level and teach it in that manner.

   The Swans practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays and play games on either Saturdays or Sundays. Because of the unknown number of players in attendance from week to week, we make sure that everyone on the team has an offensive and defensive position. I wish I had the luxury of being able to have an offensive and defensive unit, but that is not the case this year.

   Tuesdays are dedicated to offensive practice. We begin our practice by doing warm-ups and stretching. Next we run a series of different cone drills. During the cone drills period, I always emphasize to the players that it does not matter how fast you perform the drill. What matters most is that you perform the skill at hand to the best of your ability at a speed necessary to master that skill.

   Our next focus is on tackling. I have found in my time spent coaching in Europe that the majority of football players are not experienced in the technique of tackling. Most players would rather try to get you in a bear hug and wrestle you to the ground instead of putting a shoulder into an opponent and use good form tackling techniques. We spend a good 20 minutes each practice on tackling by breaking it down to the proper form and progressions.

   Our break period is spent on the board discussing things we are going to implement on offense for the week. This provides a great opportunity for our players to ask questions about what we are trying to accomplish. As a coach, you always want to make certain that everyone is on the same page.

   The next part of practice is a group period dedicated to working on different skills. I generally take the offensive linemen and my two assistant coaches work with the skill players. We spend about 20 minutes during this time to work on position-specific drills.

  After group, we go into an offensive team period. We have our starting offensive players together first and put our remaining players on defense. Sometimes we have the added bonus of having some of our Under-19 (U19) players in attendance and they can participate on the scout defense. During this period, we will rotate in our back-up offensive players that our playing on the scout defense so they have an opportunity to run the plays. On days when we are running short of players, we will run half-line drills to get things accomplished.

   We finish our practice with a special teams segment along with conditioning. We use the same practice structure for our Thursday defensive practice.

   Special teams is an area that is typically not well coached in Europe. We try our best in this important area, but like other aspects of the game, the number of players in attendance dictates what we can accomplish. It is hard to work on your punt team when you do not have a punter. We keep what we do on special teams very simple. We do not want to over-complicate what we do on special teams because during games we constantly substitute or move players around to different positions due to the size of our team.

   An important reason why you must keep things basic is the inability to scout your opponent. As head coach of the Swans, I do not get a chance to see other teams play and there is no such thing as a film exchange. Even if you have someone filming your game, there is a good chance the quality is not the best so it very difficult to use it for anything constructive from a teaching point of view. That is why it is so important to focus on the basic skills you teach and perfect them through repetition. I do not spend much time worrying about what other teams are running on offense or defense. I am more concerned about what we do offensively or defensively. Our approach of keeping things basic allows us to easily make necessary adjustments during games once we determine how our opponent is attacking us.

   With only four weeks left in the season, I am pleased to share that the Swans senior team and U16 team have made great strides to improve their level of play. We our proud of our U19 team as they battle for a playoff position. Although all coaches and players enjoy a winning season, my goal is to leave the Swans in October with a better foundation in basic skills and a deeper love for the game.

 






NEW BOOK!

AFM Videos Streaming Memberships Now Available Digital Download - 304 Pages of Football Forms for the Winning Coach



















HOME
MAGAZINE
SUBSCRIBE ONLINE COLUMNISTS COACHING VIDEOS


Copyright 2024, AmericanFootballMonthly.com
All Rights Reserved