Day One Linebacker Indy
Getting things started as a LB position coach
The first day of camp is marked by energy, enthusiasm, and wide-eyed freshmen. As a position coach, it’s important to establish a few things on that first day that will carry with you the rest of the season and beyond.
Personally, I like to start from scratch each year. The first-year players need it, and it never hurts to go over the basics with the veterans.
For Linebackers specifically, I believe there are a few foundational pieces that can be addressed during that first day of practice — or maybe first couple days, depending on your amount of INDY time — that will help set the tone for a successful season.
Stance and First Step
For every position, this is where it all starts. A good stance sets the tone for a successful play, and you never want to waste movement on your first step.
For Linebackers, it’s important that their stance gets them ready to move in any direction. We never know where our read will take us, so a balanced stance gives us unlimited options for movement. (I’ve never personally been a fan of the “read step” at the university level, but I can see some benefits to it at other levels of play.)
The clip above shows a group of LBs working their stance and their initial “Read Shuffle”. This would be their first step versus an Inside Zone play in that direction.
Movement
I’ve written about this before, but I am a student of the “Shuffle, Scrape, Shoot” school of Linebacker movement. I teach this through a progression that allows the linebackers to learn and feel these different types of movement. Eventually the hope is that they can transition seamlessly through all types.
The Shuffle is a slow, powerful movement that allows Linebackers to change directions in an efficient way.
Coaching Point: Each Linebacker should start their rep in a good LB Stance instead of “rolling” into the drill.
The Scrape involves opening the hips but attempting to keep the shoulders square so that the Linebacker can still change directions if they need to.
The final movement is a Shoot, which is fully turning and running and committing to the play.
Once these movements are drilled in a straight line for teaching purposes, we then progress to executing these movements in a DOWNHILL fashion.
Agility Square
A simple square made of four cones can help drill these movements in a controlled way.
From a good LB Stance, the player will sprint forward initially, and then Shuffle across the front of the square, finishing with a backpedal.
The next time through, the LBs will use the same pattern, but now they will Scrape across the front of the square.
Coaching Point: Their first step must be FORWARD when starting this drill. Young LBs tend to false step out of their stance when moving directly forward.
Pass Drops
While Canadian football linebackers must be solid in the Run Game, they also must be extremely effective in the Passing Game.
A “Day One” movement would be a simple flipping of the hips to execute a Pass Drop.
Keys include an initial opening of the hips, and the eyes should check the nearest receiver while executing this movement.
Final Thoughts
In my opinion, these simple movements are a good way to start when it comes to individual Linebacker drills. Obviously you will quickly progress into Reads, Shedding Blocks, Tackling, and more specific Coverage Techniques.
Best of luck to everyone as football seasons are starting up all around the country!
Take care,
Jon Svec
Defensive Coordinator
St. Francis Xavier University
X-Men Football
IG: @jonsvecx
Twitter: @jonsvecx
Jon Svec is the author of the e-book Canadian Football Chalk Talk: Defensive Basics.
Good set of basic steps, and a nice combination for fluid transition between steps.
During our off season training, we use a similar set of basic step drills, and the fluidity between steps shown here is an important factor to game utility. We also started differentiating between contact ready steps vs travel steps.
In contact ready steps, one foot is always planted on the ground, and the center of gravity is lower, base (distance between feet) is wider.
In travel steps, top closing speed is the priority, and the center of gravity is higher, base narrows. The objective in both steps is to be able to accomplish (whether contact ready or travel speed) without compromising the ability to change direction quickly - so the combination of steps and fluidity of moving from one to the other is ideal for indy set up.
*For the travel step, the hips and the center of gravity is higher, so change of direction relies partly on a gyroscope approach to the relationship between hips/center of gravity location and the lower body, with the lower body quickly angling to set an edge from which to make a corner.
As noted in Jon's post, the more game specific we become the more we change those angles to downhill shooting gaps patterns, pursuit patterns, etc..
So in these basic steps, we also include the ability to quickly transition from contact to travel to contact, with directional changes included. For us, establishing articulate instinct level movement comes before training reactionary changes in direction in indy, where the LB has to react to visual signals to change direction - although we sometimes train them same day - by having the changes in direction patterns pre-set, it allows the athlete to develop an articulate instinctive motion from slow to fast speed that can be tweaked as needed, and when in good form is a good time to move to reacting to a coach's signal for change in direction.