Understanding Elementary American Football - Offensive Tips

Line of scrimmage tactics

In various plays whether you are on offense or defense you will want to have a strategic advantage over your opponents. A great technique that will give you an advantage on the line is double team blocking. This play is simple, double up and push through. The strategy works for putting a hole in the line of scrimmage as two easily overpowers one. Here are some pointers for this strategy: First, players need to step together, and second lock hips. Next, form a wall, an impenetrable block that the opposing teams' linemen can't break. Concentrate on this wall so that the opponent cannot duck around or go through the double team. Also, this maneuver needs to happen quickly and efficiently.

Conditioning: Cross jumping

Conditioning in football is meant to help you react quickly on the field moving in a variety of directions. This drill will help players quickly change directions on the field. It starts by placing players in a small four square box. Then the player will proceed to jump from on area or box to another, thus forcing the player to jump laterally, diagonally, frontwards, and backwards. Changes can be made so that the player will only use one foot and then the other while they run the drill.

Secrets to a good hand off

Learning the basics in a hand-off is essential to a strong offense. Let's look at a simple hand off between a quarterback and a running back to point out the fundamentals of this skill. A running back at the start of a hand off should give the quarterback a target by opening up his arms that are in front of his chest enough to allow about one and a half footballs in. When the running back receives the football he clamps down both arms hard on the football to protect it. As the running back leaves from the handoff he needs to stay low to react quickly and again to protect the ball.

Hand off drill

Running backs should constantly practice the hand off. One great hand off drill starts by having two separate lines of players facing each other: line A and line B. A player leaves line A with the football and runs at line B. In sync with that first player, a second player leaves line B, when they meet player A passes to player B. Now player B has the ball and will hand off the ball to the next person in Line A who will hand off to the next player in Line B. The motion should be constantly moving from one line to another in this drill, almost like a juggling pattern. Practice this drill every day to ensure that your running backs are effective on their hand offs.



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