Linebacker Drills | FBCP S10E07

Linebackers are often considered to be the most “torn” position in football. They have twice the responsibility of other position groups, and multiple reads at the snap of the ball to get them to their assignments. 

Today’s episode we will discuss drills specifically for the linebacker corps, to help get your players reading and reacting more efficiently and playing their assignments with muscle memory.

Part 1: Why Drills?

• Drills are the essential key for how you want your Linebackers to read and react. 
• Use drills to solve problems
• The drills we do as coaches help them to get better on the field, so we always want them to move lateral and then downhill to an aiming point, so they have something to focus on. 
• Create drills that are a piece of the game, break it down to the 1 on 1 game
• Drills for every position help the kids be better at that said position, so the drills we do should mimic what they are doing in the field. Drills for DB’s should always incorporate their reads steps, drills for Offensive linemen should include short choppy steps or zone steps. You take the essential part of each position and work that concept into your drills. D Linemen should always work their hands and their feet because they use both to either one gap or two gap, QB’s should always work option in some form. WR’s should always do drills that incorporate quick movement with their feet and some form of catching.
• Don’t do a drill if you don’t have the problem. Don’t do drills just because it looks cool or because you saw it at a clinic.

Part 2: Daily Drills

• We work drills that incorporate our reads and keys for the week into that individual practice, whether it is an I team, and you are reading guard to FB, wing-t and you are reading guards, spread where we read linemen and assign a cutback player or double wing where it is all linemen reads. 
• Drill the basic skills, especially key reads. Tackling, defeating blocks, pass drops, blitzing.
• Drills advance throughout the season. If they mastered the drill, make it more difficult or more involved.
• These drills should incorporate certain plays that they like to run with that read, so they get used to calling it out as they are going through the drill. Bag work is something we always use in our drills because you can work on quick movement and power or jumping over bags and lifting their feet, attacking at 45-degree angles, and dropping into coverage.

Part 3: Supplementary Drills

• We always try to work drills for jet sweep and jet power for our OLB’s/DE’s and safeties, so they work in conjunction with the jet sweep. 
• Then depending on how many LB’s we are using we work pass drops and communication whether in zone or man to man coverage. Using D Back dropping drills into your linebacker drills helps with them getting into pass coverage. 
• We love working a drop and find the nearest threat drill for LB’s too. If we are using 3 LB’s it is helping on slant or an RPO, if it is 2 LB’s dropping into the drag/dig area for crossers or shallow combinations. 

Related Links

• Check out Coach Dugan’s first appearance on The Football Coaching Podcast talking 4-3 Defense in Season 7, Episode 9: https://joedanielfootball.com/2020dugan/
• The 5 Step Progression to Developing Great Linebackers
• Jared Brookman joined the Football Coaching Podcast to talk about The Physics of Tackling earlier in Season 10: https://joedanielfootball.com/physics-of-football-tackling/