Building blocks of X's and O's: Defensive leverage
The essence of good defense is leverage on the ball.
My oldest son is doing flag football camp this week, I dropped him off before undertaking a fruitless journey looking for a copy of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football before coming home and discovering it hasn’t hit shelves yet.
Awesome. Glad I checked.
After giving up on that task I ended up watching the kids scrimmaging in flag football for a while until it was time for pick-up. One of my dreams is to coach one or both of my boys in flag football and God help you subscribers if that day comes and I get the chance to tell stories or elucidate flag football tactics.
I will say this though, one of the hardest concepts for kids to learn is team leverage on the ball. It’s an entirely plausible skill to learn, wolves and other pack animals essentially learn how to leverage prey via instinct and following the example of older animals. Nevertheless, it’s not necessarily intuitive for kids and I’m not sure at what point it’s really taught. American youth coaches usually seem to emphasize individual skill development rather than pack behavior. That’d be in line with American culture.
If/when I coach a flag football team, I’m going to drill team leverage on the ball and pursuit. It’s hard to grab those flags 1-on-1.
When you understand how defensive leverage is supposed to work, it’s easier to see the game at a more macro level and anticipate breakdowns and scoring before they happen. I’ll explain.