The lights are low. Your players are scattered around, some are in chairs, some are on the floor. They’ve been sitting in classes since 8am, and now its 3pm and they’re sitting again, watching next week’s opponent.

You’ve got the remote. A few assistants are scattered around the room. You are narrating the film like Ben Stein, while your assistants chime in with occasional comments. The players rarely say anything, except an outburst over a big hit.

Can’t you do better than this? I know you had to live through it and they should too. But are you using the limited football film study time that we have as wisely as you can?

Film Study Sheets

Create a football film study sheet for each position. Guide the players (and the coaches) in the direction they need to be going as they view the game film.

You want your guy to focus on his EMOLS Read and not the incredible moves that the running back has? Better ask him some qeustions about that Tackle or Tight End.

Have your players tell you who the guy they’re most focused on is, and what he does. Look at this alignment, does it tell you anything? Is he lazy when he’s not getting the ball? Does his butt sit back when he pulls?

Be sure to have the players note the best plays the offense runs. If they really get a good feel for the game, they should be able to tell you what that play is without any help. (Unless you get one of those teams who is a jack of all trades, master of none!)

Take note of jersey numbers. Is someone rotating? What does their rotation tell you? Often times we’ve found a back who rarely carries the ball, but is great catching out of the backfield, or blocking.

Be alert for changes in the Offensive Line, where cohesiveness as a unit is vital to success. Why did the change occur?

Look at where receiver routes are run. As much as pattern reading is in vogue, most of the time you’ll find receivers running routes and making catches on the hash, numbers, or sidelines, where we would have spot dropped in simpler times. If you can speed up your linebackers with this information, it is a benefit.

Group Players with their Coaches

Film sessions are no time for your guys to sit with their buddies, or for you to give a 30 minute monologue. Have the players sit with their position coach.

The goal is to have more of a running discussion in the group, with the coach guiding it. Most players don’t hate football film study, they hate sitting still and not talking. They want to watch football film, and learn from it, so we need to make that happen.

Putting players in these small groups is beneficial because they’ll be more engaged with their individual coaches, and also have someone in close proximity to them. If you have the means to put each position in their own area with their own position coach, then by all means do it – but we don’t.

Another good idea is to only have your two deep depth chart in the room. 6 or 8 linebackers in manageable, but you’ve got 15 guys in the room who play a total of four positions, its going to be tough.

Keep It Simple – and Short

Showing the entire game from an opponent has its advantages, certainly. But if you’ve got a specific message you want thep layers to get from football film study, set them up for success.

Find a selection of 10 plays that show specifically the problem that you want to fix, or illustrate the plan you’ll be implementing in this week’s game. Give players a visual of what they will see and, if available, how to stop it.

I’m not a fan of showing them the wrong way (particularly not repeatedly). Some coaches like to use bad technique to show their point, though. I just don’t want to even talk about it – don’t even address it as a possibility – when you are watching the other teams. Make corrections when you review your own football film.

Extra Football Film Study Sessions

Give your players all of the opportunity they need to study more film. If they want copies to take home, make it happen. If your program isn’t able to pay for lots of blank DVDs, then let the players bring them in. You can probably get each position group to go in on a stack of 100 DVD-R’s and they’ll be taken care of for the season.

Obviously it will help if you have a stack to burn all of those extra copies.

Open up film for players to view early in the morning, and after practice, as well. We should never limit the amount of film players can watch.

Whenever possible, sit in with your players as they watch extra film. Give them the remote, let them see what they want to see, but continue to guide their eyes to the key points.

Quiz Your Players

Give your players a quiz on Thursday after practice. You should be monitoring your coaching ability as much as their focus. Ask the 10 things that players really need to know. Those pieces of information that you’ve been hammering.

Ask the questions in a way that your players can answer. Remember that they are not coaches.

I’ve found that asking them what gap to go to can get some strange answers, while asking them to draw a line showing where they go on a blitz is more effective. Your kids are visual, and most of them learned what to do on the field, not in meetings. So ask them questions that way.

Quiz players on personnel, best plays, strong situational tendencies, and special packages or blitzes that you have developed for this week.

You’re not going to sit anyone for failing the test, but if they fail the test you need to sit down with them and find out why. You may find that they know the information, just not how to answer your quiz questions. Learn to write better quizzes.

If you find that everyone failed it, find out why. Did you not coach it right, or did you write a really bad quiz? Do not blame the players. It is your job to teach them.

Evaluate Your Football Film Study

At the end of the week, when the game is over, pull out your quiz. See if you were right, or if you missed some key points.

Don’t just throw away the film study you did all week at the end and assume you did it right. If your players didn’t seem to get it, you should be looking at what happened. And even if they did get it, you need to make sure you continue to repeat what you did for future success.

Take note of how the offense adapted to your team defense, in comparison to how they played everyone else. I know that by running a 3-man front this season, and in particular a 3-4 Defense, we won’t see many teams playing against a similar front. We will benefit greatly from learning how what they do against a 4-man front will compare to how they handle us.

If you pour yourself into preparation each week, and get your kids to buy into your game plan, you can be successful. Use film study in a more creative and specific way to get the full benefit though. Get your players to immerse themselves in the game week preparation and become an expert in their position in the plan.

For plenty of film to study (not of your opponents though, most likely) check out ChiefPigskin.com

Trick plays are always fun for the offense. Once a game, give or take a play, the OC gets to call something he drew up on a napkin. He may have been drinking, maybe not, when he drew it up. And the kids, they just love running trick football plays.

But you’re the defensive coach. You’ve got to stop it. The question is how?

Don’t waste a lot of practice time on stopping a trick play. Talk through it in a meeting. Throw it out there once or twice during practice each day. But don’t waste the kid’s time with a 12 minute period on stopping the Double Reverse Pass.

Preparation

The responsibility for stopping a trick play is on you, the coach. Here are a few key points to stopping a trick football play with preparation:

1. Have rules built in to your defense. One good one is for the corners to never, EVER leave their receiver or zone until they know for sure the ball carrier has crossed the line of scrimmage. This helps against plays like the Toss Pass.
2. Be sure your linemen are watching the ball and playing to the whistle. Don’t get caught off guard just because things are unfolding strangely.
3. Study trick plays your opponent runs and look for the situation and and tip-offs players may give you that a trick is coming.

Practice

In practice, you want to throw the trick football plays out to your players, without spending an undue amount of time on defending them.

1. Introduce any trick plays your opponent runs up on the board during a meeting early in the week. Let the players know that these are a possibility at any time!
2. Show them the plays out on the field, being sure to note and differences in formation, personnel or situation that you have found in film study.
3. Run the play once or twice telling them that it is coming – so that they can have success in defending it.
4. Once they know the play, and how to defend it, just slip it into the practice script randomly throughout the week. Don’t overkill it, just once or twice will be plenty.
5. It isn’t a bad idea to throw a trick play out even in weeks where you may not have seen it on film. Just keep your kids honest.

Game Day

On game day, be sure to remind your kids when the situation you would expect a trick play comes up.

If you’re constantly bringing up a trick play though, you may be paralyzing your kids for a play that might not even happen.

Don’t forget that your ability to stop trick football plays doesn’t normally decide your game’s outcome. The outcome is decided by how well you take away what they do best.

Getting them to not overcommit and never assume anything, though, will prevent you from getting embarrassed by that play the OC drew up Thursday night at 1am in the Applebees bar.

For lots of football play ideas that aren’t tricks, be sure to check out ChiefPigskin.com!

In a previous post we looked at the 46 Defense, or Bear Defense, and the front 8 players. Now for the coverages!

You can get creative with your coverages in any defensive front. But the reality is, you are limited in coverages with the 46 Defense. Bear defense coverages are pretty well limited to Cover 0, Cover 1, and Cover 3.

Cover 1

The primary Bear Defense coverage is the Cover 1, with man coverage and one safety helping over the top. This allows a 5 man rush on the QB.

One of the features of Cover 1 in the 46 Defense is the bracket coverage on the Tight End. If the Tight End wants to release outside, the player lined up on his outside foot (Strong Safety in our diagram) will run with him, while the inside guy will rush the QB and contain the passer.

If the Tight End works for an inside release, as in a drag route or TE Pop Pass, the inside guy will handle him. The outside player is now free to rush.

Cover 0

The next coverage for the Bear Defense is a Cover 0, Man Coverage with no help over top and a 6 man rush. All 6 players lined up on the line will rush, with the Free Safety taking the Tight End.

Cover 3

Finally, the Cover 3 is the natural fit for zone coverage in the Bear Defense.

The Free Safety and the two Corners handle the deep 1/3′s, which is pretty standard in Cover 3.

You have the option of making this a 4 under, 3 deep coverage with a 4 man rush or a 3 under, 3 deep coverage more closely associated with Fire Zone blitzes and 5 man pressure.

How you want to create the 3 under, 3 deep (or any zone coverage out of the Bear Defense) is going to depend on your personnel. You may not have an End who can drop off, so you’d need to adapt.

Thoughts on 46 Defense Coverages

Just an opinion here on the Bear Defense, and remember that I’ve never run it. You’re not running this because you want to run a safe, sound Cover 3 defense with a “bend but don’t break” philosophy.

The Bear Defense is an atttack style defense. It is for causing havoc in the backfield. Man coverage is best for quick throws, because your guys are playing closer to the receivers.

If you’re going to run the Bear Defense, you better be forcing quick throws with tons of pressure from some bad dudes on the defensive front. If your plan is to run the 46 Defense with Cover 3 behind it all season as your base front, I’m going to suggest you rethink your philosophy!

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The 46 Defense was designed in the early 1980s by Buddy Ryan with the Chicago Bears.  Most folks know that – and hence, the nickname, “Bear” Defense.  It was the defense of the dominant 1985 Bears team.

The defense has its basis in the old 5-2 Double Eagle front and is easy to adapt from the 4-3 Defense. It is an 8-man, run-stopping from that works well with man coverages and with Cover 3.

Every defensive package should have some sort of 46 Defense – or Bear Front – in its package, and it isn’t hard to add to your package because it works with Odd Front and Even Front packages.

Alignment

All of my information on the 46 Defense comes from Rex Ryan and Jeff Walker’s Coaching Football’s 46 Defense book.  I’ve used variations of the front with different packages, but never as the base defense.

The alignment of the 46 Defense centers around the 3-0-3 alignment in the middle.  This means we have a Defensive Lineman aligned on the outside shoulder of each of the Guards, and a head up Nose Guard.  In the diagram above I’m showing the 43 Defense adapted to the Bear Front, where the Strong End slides down to a 3-tech.

I refer to any front with this 3-0-3 alignment as a Bear Front, mainly because of the effect it has on the offensive blocking schemes.  The biggest advantage of this front is its almost impossible to create double teams, especially on your Nose Guard.  If you have a dominant defensive lineman that can play that 0-technique Nose position, this is a big advantage.

The weak side Defensive End stays in a 5-Technique.  On the strong side, one Linebacker is going to walk up on the inside foot of the Tight End while another Linebacker or Safety is going to walk up on the outside foot of the Tight End.  Who you want to do this is going to be based on your own personnel, so don’t get caught up in the letters!

The two Linebackers remaining are going to line up in 40-techniques, 5 yards off the ball and head up over the Offensive Tackles.

Run Fits

There’s no better front for stopping the run than the 46 Defense.  Here are the run responsibilities for the front 8:

Nose Guard:  The 0-tech nose is going to handle the play side A-Gap.  He’s a 2-gap player.

Tackles: The two 3-tech Tackles handle the B-Gaps.  They’re attacking the outside shoulder of the Guard.

Weak End: The weak side end plays a 5-technique and handles the outside and contains the play.  He needs to hold the point on that tackle and not let the B-gap widen.  Its more likely that he’ll just be forcing plays to the sideline than necessarily turning them back inside.

Sam Linebacker:  The Sam Linebacker walks up on the inside foot of the Tight End and hammers him, reading the footwork of the Tackle with his eyes.  If the Tackle goes down, he’s going to squeeze down expecting a pulling Guard or Fullback.

Strong Safety: The Safety (or whoever you choose) is walked up on the outside foot of the Tight End.  He’s hammering him and controlling the outside.  He is the box/contain player on the strong side.

Linebackers: The 40-tech Linebackers are reading backfield action.  All of the gaps are controlled except the A-Gap the Nose does not control. On outside flow, the backside linebacker works over to play cut-back to that open A-Gap.

The Play side linebacker plays off of the Defensive End or Safety, expecting him to either force the play back inside or force it to bounce.  He needs to make this guy right.

On hard flow, inside flow runs the backers are filling up any open space.  There’s just no real bubble to run an Iso to, and defending Power and Counter is going to be based off of how the player being kicked out plays it.  The DL will be looking to wrong arm, so plays should bounce.

Free Safety:  We need a stud at Free Safety.  Someone who can play center field on Cover 1 or Cover 3, but also run the alleys and clean up outside runs.  Here’s a simple Alley Press drill from Coach Albaugh at ChiefPigskin.com.

Coverages

As I mentioned, the coverage for the 46 Defense is mostly going to be Cover 0, Cover 1 or Cover 3 – which should be the case with any 8-man front defense.  You can come up with all of the exotic looks you want, but that’s going to be the basic look.  Click here for 46 Defense Coverages.

Do you run the 46 Defense?  Add a comment and give us some tips!

This is Step 10 of the 10 Steps to Creating a Tougher Defense, an on-going series where we look at 10 ways to improve the overall toughness of your team defense.

Step 1: Conditioning Your Defense for Toughness
Step 2: Building Toughness in the Weight Room
Step 3: Equipping your Defense to Play Tough
Step 4: Tackling Angles for Tough Defense
Step 5: Defeating Blocks for Defensive Toughness
Step 6: High Intensity, Full Contact Football Practice
Step 7: Run a Tough Offense to Toughen your Defense
Step 8: Aggressive Play Calling for a Tough Defense
Step 9: Limited Contact Practices
Step 10: Award Tough Play on Defense

I’m an adult. I’m a professional. And I like getting cheesy little awards for my work. Seriously. I’ve never received one in teaching, but I think I’d like to. In my current job, I get little certificates when I do a particularly good job though. Its nice, it makes me feel good. I feel funny saying that to strangers.

So you coach kids, and you don’t give them any helmet stickers? They’re cheap. They look good on helmets when a kid has a lot of them. Kind of intimidating, even. And they’re a good motivator!

Motivate your kids to play tough defense by awarding the right kinds of play.

Reward your defensive football players for group accomplishments, such as a shut out or big goal line stand.

Also reward individual accomplishments, but steer the focus more towards “effort plays” than big hits, which are often the result of luck.

Every coach and every team has different awards. Here is just a short list of some ideas for awards to encourage tough defensive play:

Gang Tacklers: When a group of players swarm to the ball to make a big tackle. You know the one’s, where the ball carrier is completely swallowed up! Each player involved in the pile gets a sticker. No penalties for getting there late, especially if its your back side corner jumping in on the pile at the whistle. He was hustling!

Never Give Up: For running a guy down when it looked like he was gone. A touchdown saving tackle can mean a lot to your team. That never say die attitude is what a tough defense needs an we want to encourage it.

Seek & Destroy: This is for the guy who destroys a blocker or two with great technique, and comes off to make the play. He refuses to let anything come between him and the ball. Not an average play!

Max Effort: Similar to the previous two awards, a guy who just refuses to be stopped. May be an award you give out to one player each game, the guy who’s motor was running for 48 (or 60) minutes.

Leading the Charge: Another award that goes out to one guy each game. The inspiration for the team effort. Not just that vocal team leader, though he’ll get it at times. Another one is the guy who has to come in for an injured starter, who hasn’t played much, but comes in ready to go and does a great job filling in. Special Teams guys, like your “Wedge Buster” could get this too.

I’ve always found it funny how much guys get excited about these awards. I also know that I kept the last helmet sticker I got in high school in my wallet until I lost that wallet several years later. Awards for your players are a good motivator and one you should definitely be using!

If you’re not giving out awards right now, consider doing it. If you’re giving them out for stats, that’s fine – I’d think about adding some other awards that don’t show up it he stats sheet though.

Leave a Reply below and let us know what awards you give out to your defense!