The Importance Of Non-Contact & Low Impact Football Drills

In today’s blog post, I want to take the opportunity to impress upon you the importance of making a commitment to non-contact and low impact football drills for teaching tackling and teaching pursuit.

Non-contact and low impact drills save a lot of injury and creates muscle memory for your players to know exactly what to do in a specific situation. During these football drills, it’s more about technique than it is about toughness.

And we’ve all got guys we wish were a little bigger, a little stronger, maybe a little tougher, but you can’t coach that.

But you can coach technique. Use the non-contact football drills all season long. That way, they’ve been learning tackling since spring ball. They don’t have to learn tackling on the first day of pads and get all beat up.

They’re probably going to be sore enough as it is with all the conditioning they’ve had to do. Also, you can do it every day, in small increments. And never forget to use the positive language. Have all the coaches using the same coaching points. Use them in the drills, and use them during the game.

Coaches, I know there are a lot of football drills to choose from. You may not have the guys, you may not have the coaches to run that many drills. It may seem like it’s going to take a long time to put them in. But there’s a solution for that. What you need to do is teach a couple of drills a day and take, instead of 90 seconds, maybe five minutes per station. Really teach it. Keep the tempo slow.

Demonstrate for them. And then, as the season goes on, you shorten the time of the drills until you get them down to 60 seconds. If your players have done them enough times, they know when they get there – because you set them up the same every time, you have the same coaches or two running the same drills every time, you do them at the same time of practice – so when they get there, they know exactly what to do. There’s no more teaching time.

You go from having them in five-minute increments to two-minute increments, and then down to 60 seconds. Get them in, get them out, blow the whistle. Get them in, get them out, blow the whistle. This way, you can then do tackle circuit with five or six guys.

Get your team captains or team leaders, and have them work on keeping up the tempo, keeping up the enthusiasm. But you’re not going to teach your whole team these football drills in one day. And as the season goes on, you need to shorten the time of each drill.

Use non-contact football drills.

Doing this, you will reduce the amount of injuries you have on your team for the year. We don’t need to hurt anybody trying to teach tackling. Remember, tackling is more about technique than it is about toughness, okay?

Focus on getting all of your tempos correct.

Walk through each drill with them. Make sure your football drills are relevant. Make sure they’re about real football situations. Explain the football situation that the drill applies to, while the players are out there.   And get them excited about the project!     By applying these principles, you will keep your players safe, while teaching them the core fundamentals necessary to create a winning team!

If you are looking for more great football drills, be sure to check out my Football Drills and Practice Plans series, complete with video demonstrations!   And don’t forget to Become a Fan on Facebook, where I will share more football drills, tips and techniques!