Coaching Football: Technique or Scheme?

Coaching football is a complicated profession often made more difficult by the fact that every armchair quarterback has an opinion. While some coaches focus more on coaching schemes other coaches focus more on technique; yet, both are important parts of the game of football. As a coach, I believe in the basics --- you can’t teach a baby to run until you teach that baby to walk. Likewise, a coach can’t teach an athlete new plays until that athlete learns how to perform the technique that will make him successful in the game.

Technique.  Many of today’s coaches have gone away from the fundamentals of football and this is one of the reasons that so many players are injured on the field. Players now do not know how to tackle correctly, thus causing injuries to themselves and to their opponents. ESPN recently wrote an article on Donnovan Hill who was paralyzed after making a tackle. The article asks the question whether or not proper tackling technique was taught? I would argue NO - Donnovan was not taught the proper tackling techniques. In the video of the tackle you can clearly see that Donnovan had his head down when he made the tackle. To make a safe tackle the tackler needs to have his head up. Technique could have saved Donnovan from this horrific accident.

 

Scheme.Scheme is great but only once technique is mastered. A coach in the first part of the season should take the first meeting to just talk about technique then move into installing his offense or defense. This allows players to learn the technique that is wanted before going to the practice field. Scheme will come along much better once technique is mastered. If a quarterback doesn’t know how to take a snap how will he be able to perform any part of the scheme?

 

Being a great coach is all about teaching. Anyone can tell a player where he needs to be on a play. It takes a great coach/teacher to show the player how to get there and the proper technique to be successful.