Kamikaze Kick-Off Teams

I thought I would post something on a defense special team, as I was looking through some old film and remembered this one. The Bomber Kick-Off is stolen from someone, no doubt. We used it for one season and I got chicken after that, but it was a huge success for us. No kicks were returned for touchdowns, and we made most tackles inside the 25 yard line. We made a number of stops inside the 20.

The Basics

The Kamikaze Kick-Off was the name I used because it not only is the name of one of the key players, but it fits the idea behind the design. There’s a definite high risk to running it, as well as a big reward. It is very aggressive, which fits my mentality toward the kick-off. We want to make a statement!

The ball is going to be placed on the hash and kicked between the hash and the sideline. It’s really important that your kicker can directional kick with accuracy – if he starts putting a lot of balls in the middle of the field you’ll have a disaster on your hands. For the first four games, we lined up on the left has and kicked it down the left hash every time. Teams started to take advantage of that, so we switched it up later in the season and eventually put the ball in the middle of the field – but we had a very good kicker.

The Positions
Closest to the sideline on the kick side (the side the hash is on), will be your first contain guy. His job is “Protector of the Sideline,” because if anything gets between him and the sideline, its lights out.

The next 4 guys in are Daggers. They are working to the ball, keeping it on their inside shoulders. The reality is that Dagger #1 and #2 should be on the outside of the hash, and the #3 and #4 should be on the inside of the hash. The diagram I’m showing is a little off there, as #3 is outside the hash. #1 and #2 are keeping the ball on their inside shoulder while #3 and #4 keep the ball on the outside shoulder.

The Kamikaze is right over the hash. He can fall in behind the kicker and sprint right off his hip, or do whatever else he’s comfortable with. He’s a laser to the football – no responsibility, other than to tackle the ball-carrier. The Kamikaze isn’t wrong unless he doesn’t give 100% effort down the field. He should be your best (and a little off, too).

The next 3 guys are the Bombers. To this point, the kick-off is a pretty standard directional kick. But the bombers fold on behind the daggers. They fill in the spaces. Bomber #1 fills in between Daggers #1 and #2. Bomber #2 fits between Daggers #2 and #3, and Bomber #3 fits between Dagger #3 and #4. If everyone does what they are supposed to do, there are a lot of bodies in a very small area – and no where for the returner to go.

The final player is the contain guy on the outside – “Protector of the Hash.” You condense the field down to an area between the kick-side sideline, and the backside hash. This guy needs to be an athletic and reliable tackler in the open field. He doesn’t need to be a big hitter, but he has to have lateral movement. The biggest breakdown you could have is this guy losing his contain. Like I said, it never happened for us – but…

Below is a video of this kick-off in action. I don’t have any end zone shots where you could really see it happening, but you get the idea (I’m not claiming this as a perfect example, either).

The Conclusion

So after all of this, the next season we ran a traditional kick-off. Why? I started questioning why we needed these gimmicky things, when we could do it just as well with a regular lanes kick-off. I don’t regret the decision, but I do think this was more aggressive and created a bit of an attitude on the kick-off team. Also, I was scared to death that it would eventually not work. Teams were trying everything to attack and beat it, but couldn’t do it. The biggest problem was I didn’t know if we had another guy who could be the “Protector of the Hash” out there.

One advantage to this was that it took a lot of work to get it right. Why is that an advantage? Teams tend to under-coach their special teams, while at the same time giving tons of lip service to how important they are. We would have looked like fools if we didn’t coach this thing to death!