The Football Coaching Podcast with Joe Daniel

Defensive play calling might seem simple. Pick a front, maybe throw in a blitz, choose a coverage. But it's not. Defensive football in general isn't nearly as simple as some would make it out to be. Sure, at the heart of the matter you just find the football and get the guy to the ground. But if that was all it took, we'd all be geniuses. On this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast, we're loo...

It's just 3 yards. How hard can it be? 2 Point Conversion Plays seem like easy points. But they won't be unless your team is prepared. If you have a good field goal kicker, the 2 Point Conversion may be something you only use when you need it. For other coaches, it's an absolute necessity. There's a lot to think about when you put together your 2 Point Package. How many plays do you need? Do the c...

The 3-4 Defense is one of the most popular schemes being used in High School, College and the NFL today. Unfortunately, just saying that you 'run a 3-4 Defense' won't tell anyone else a whole lot. Sure, you use 3 down linemen and 4 linebackers. But they can be arranged in a huge variety of ways. And flexibility is one of the strengths of the 3-4 Defense.  Within  JDFB Insiders,  I teach  The 3-4 D...

Playing Center is not the most glamorous position. It's the opposite. In the NFL, the Left Tackle gets all the glory on the Offensive Line. Probably the only position to consistently get recognized up front. Sure, there's a few Centers who become well known. They usually have a high command of the offense and play for many years. And they're snapping the ball to some of the top Quarterbacks in foo...

Things might be going well. They may not be. For whatever reason, you feel like you need to make some changes. Big one's. It's time for the playoff push. Or you're just trying to salvage the season from disaster. So you're thinking about making drastic changes . You want to change you a whole new defensive scheme. Right now. In the middle of the season. In today's episode of The Football Coaching...

  In a big runaway win from our Twitter Poll this week, the Veer Option received 35% of the vote! And I'm excited about that. This episode won't cover the entire offense, of course. That's impossible. We'll be focusing on The Split Back Inside Veer play. Two whole episodes of old school (sort of) Option Football in a row! What a treat. All the Spread Offense guys have left us by now. But we're sti...

I love college football. That doesn't mean I'm glued to the TV all day every Saturday. However, I'll usually stop to watch Georgia Tech's Flexbone Option Offense on the field for at least a series or two. Not because I love Georgia Tech, let's make that clear. I'm a lifelong UGA fan. But man, that offense is a thing of beauty. Most people I talk to don't understand it. They think the Flexbone Opti...

The mark of a great coach is the ability to adjust during the game. It's not easy, and it takes a lot of experience. Adjusting your football run defense is no difference. Unfortunately, a lot of the football run defense adjustments you make won't work, just because the team you're playing is flat-out better than you. Those game winning adjustments will be few and far between, no matter how good yo...

Paul "Bear" Bryant is a coaching legend. There's not much question about that. He won 6 National Championships as the Head Football Coach at the University of Alabama. The image of his houndstooth hat is unmistakeable. But we're football coaches, and we're not just interested in the story of a coach who won a lot of football games (323 games, to be exact). We want to know how. And why. In this epi...

The Overhang Safeties in your 8-man front defense set the edge. Defend the flats. They are critical to shrinking the field for your defense. Overhang Safeties are a major piece in your 4-2-5 Defense or 3-3-5 Defense. If you call it a 4-4 Defense or 3-5-3 Defense, they're your Outside Linebackers. The principles are still the same. Episode 209 of The Football Coaching Podcast will go in depth on co...

Special Teams are one-third of the game. Every coach says it. Most of us don't actually spend that much time on it, though. In fact, a big part of special teams comes down to execution. Limiting mistakes. If you can do that, you can make big things happen. I posted 4 Special Teams units on our Twitter Poll @footballinfo . The winner by a big margin was the Kick Return schemes. And why not? Kick Re...

The Playbook. It's like the Holy Grail of football coaches. We dream of putting together that amazing playbook. With just the right selection of calls. You've probably drawn up one or two in your time. If you've been dreaming of this job for long, you at least drawn up a few plays. Almost every football coach has downloaded a few playbooks from the Internet, too. Good and bad. The truth of the pla...

Press Man Coverage is our Twitter Poll winner at http://twitter.com/footballinfo for this week. I'll look at some of the myths and reality of coaching Press Coverage. We'll also talk about technique for coaching press coverage to your athletes. I used to be one of those guys who shied away from press technique. Always thought you had to have some kind of freakish athlete to do it. Now I'm going to...

The Single Wing Offense has one of the oldest and most storied histories in all of football. After seemingly disappearing from the game, it has come back in force in recent years. And that's what we're going to talk about on this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast. The modern day Single Wing that you can run with your own football team, right now. I'll be looking specifically at the Unbalanc...

You've got the playbooks printed. The players will be there. Are you ready, coach? This week in The Football Coaching Podcast we're looking at preparing for those critical pre-season practices. Getting your team ready for Week 1, when it really counts. Everyone wants a cookie cutter answer to installing your offense or defense. It's not that easy. You can't just run practice plans someone hands yo...

The Wing-T Offense has always been a fascination of mine. Even though I've never really coached the system. For this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast, I'm indulging that fascination by exploring the origins of the Delaware Wing-T Offense. You might know the story. You probably don't. I didn't. Tubby Raymond is not a major part of this tale. In fact, he marks the end of the story. Instead,...

This week is a special Football Coaching Podcast mailbag episode. I'm answering questions from coaches on all kinds of topics. I'll be discussing… How to coach the 7-technique (or 6i) Defensive End. This is a follow-up on the last episode about the 6-Tech Defensive End How do you get into coaching, when you don't want to be a teacher? What coverage options do you have for Trips formations in the M...

You'll find out the advantages of using a 6-tech Defensive End, how to coach this technique, and whether or not your football team has the right guy to play that position. The 6-tech Defensive End won our poll topic getting 33% of the votes and beating out Kick Return Strategy. There won't be a poll next week, but I do need you to send an email to joe@joedanielfootball.com or tweet me your questio...

In this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast, I'll talk about advantages of Press Quarters Coverage, the basics of coaching Press Quarters, and adjustments that you'll need to be ready to make if this becomes your base coverage. You can use press quarters coverage with any traditional defensive front. I'm focusing on the viewpoint of a 4-3 Defense, since that's where we have used Quarters most...

Coaches are always struggling to create an identity for your football team. We don't need to create it though - you should be trying to develop the identity. It's an important distinction, and the biggest takeaway from this podcast. You need to build around the strongest positive character trait that the majority of your team possesses. To find your football team's identity, you need to examine th...

It's the single most searched term on Joe Daniel Football. "Linebacker Reads." So it's about time we do the definitive podcast on coaching linebacker reads. Of all styles. Because I coach them all. It's about finding what works best for your players, in your defense. And every player is different. Heck, every game is different - but we only have an hour (well, 70 minutes). I'll talk about backfiel...

We're always looking for new technology to give your football team an edge on the opponent. And there's an increasing number of options. In this episode of The Football Coaching Podcast, I'll look at a few of those different options. From video analysis, to playbook, team organization and safety - learn new ways to improve your football team. None of these are the magic bullet. You have to become...

This week's winner on our Twitter poll @footballinfo  was Defending Trips Formations. We look at multiple ways to defend 3 by 1 formations no matter what defense you're running. In any game plan, you'll need 3 ways to defend Trips Formations. I'll give you plenty to think about.  As with any other defensive plan, it starts with deciding what the offense is using that formation for. What's their pu...

The Red Zone is the Scoring Zone. When you get there, you've just got to put points on the board. And a field goal isn't good enough. No, in fact, a field goal represents a failure for the Offense in the Red Zone (still a positive for the team!).  Red Zone Offense needs to be one of your top priorities for the Offense to be successful. In today's episode of The Football Coaching Podcast, I'll tell...

Cornerback technique is often neglected. If you focus in on the fundamentals of the position, you can make some huge improvements with these athletes in a short period of time. I'm breaking down the position by coverage and using the A.S.K.A. model.  A.S.K.A. is Alignment, Stance, Key and Responsibility. It tells the story for every position on your defense. It is the pre-snap checklist every defe...