Defensive Back Technique – Breaking Down Transitions

Once your players have the proper stance and backpedal down pat, it’s time to introduce them to some more advanced defensive back techniques.

Namely the weave, the drive, and the open techniques. Which are all vital to your success as a corner or safety.  The weave is a lateral run, the drive is used when making a cut back towards the ball, and the open allows you to break out of your stance into a sprint, in the case of a deep ball.

The Weave

Much like the backpedal, we want to stay low and tight, and keep our shoulders and hips square. There is no crossover of the feet, we are reaching out with and pushing off with the outside foot. Also, arms should be relaxed, but in tight to the body.

The Drive

The drive is used to break forward out of a backpedal, to cover a hook or curl pattern. The important thing to remember is to ‘stick’ your feet, quickly digging one

into the ground, and violently churning your arms. You don’t want to overcoach the feet, just remind players to keep everything within the core of their body, and to pump their feet and arms, and they will be able to figure the rest out themselves.

The Open

This might be the most important technique for your players to master, preventing them from getting beat downfield constantly. To break it down, it’s a turn out of the backpedal out into a full sprint down the field. There are two main coaching points your going to want to emphasize, the hop up into the air, and the pumping of the elbows.

To make the turn as easy as possible, you want to remind players to get their foot pointed in the direction they want to turn – upfield. That’s where the foot hop comes into play. As the player starts to open his shoulders, he has to bring his far foot up into the air, buying us some time in  the air to make that transition.

The other key is to bring the elbows up, at the same time as that hop, and then bring them back down again, pumping them to help accentuate the turn upfield.

Coaching Tips

• Don’t forget to end every drill with a chop down – there should always be a finish to every drill

• Instead of telling them orally, make sure to use visual commands for each technique and it’s correct situation, sometimes just waving a ball to the left right, or up and down.

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