Flag Football Drill – Shark Game & Tackling Drill

If you’re looking for some fresh ideas for coaching your flag football team, give these a try.   They work on conditioning and tackling and your players will have fun at the same time. One thing I have done with my young flag football team 5,6,7 yr olds, is to play a game I call SHARK. It involves the whole team and the kids get some major practice in while they think it’s a game.

SHARK
This can work on any size boundaries that you want to setup.
We start with 3-4 kids with footballs on one side (minnows) and the rest of the 10 kids on the other side (sharks).

The object is for the sharks to pull flags off as many minnows as possible before they reach the other side. Then, repeat until only one minnow is left. The kids just love it and they get their cardio (running) in without even knowing it.

Flag Football Tackling Drill
Set up: 4 cones in a square about 7-10 yds a part
4 groups of girls with their flag belts on, line up behind each cone   (usually there are 4-5 players in each corner)
Drill:
On coach’s command, 1st player in line from one corner proceeds clockwise as fast as he can to each of the other three corners, and pulls both flags off the belt of a player standing in a football ready position.

Rotate through each corner, then go counterclockwise.   The tackler practices what we call “popping the hips” –   with thumbs up, hands slightly curved, attacking (tackling) the hips of the player to be tackled before pulling the flag   in a downward directions.   We focus on the “popping the hips”, making contact with a ball carrier, and avoid reaching or grabbing at flags.

We have three other four corner tackling drills we build from this basic flag pulling (tackling) drill.