Football Skills and Drills - Thomas Bass

Football Skills and Drills

by Thomas Bass

NEW, 216 pages

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About Football Skills and Drills

Solid blocking, sure tackling, proper footwork, precise routes, correct coverage angles, and synchronized body movements: basic techniques, perhaps, but all essential to winning football. Football Skills & Drills is your guide to success, covering key skills and consistent execution within all offensive, defensive, and special teams positions.

You will benefit from the same techniques used by top college and professional teams, along with a complete arsenal of 83 drills. From quarterback rollouts for winning touchdowns to block-shedding maneuvers for drive-stopping sacks, Football Skills & Drills translates technical instruction into on-field application, depicting exactly how each pass, pattern, route, catch, block, tackle, and kick are performed.

Gridiron champions are made on the practice field. Football Skills & Drills serves as a great foundation in your team’s quest for a title.

About Tom Bass

Tom Bass coached with three NFL teams over a span of nearly 30 years. With the Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and San Diego Chargers he served as a defensive coordinator and assistant coach on both offense and defense, and he held front-office roles of vice president of public relations and director of player personnel. Before his move to the NFL, he enjoyed six successful years of college coaching at San Jose State University and San Diego State.

Bass is also recognized as a premier clinician throughout the world. He conducts on-site technical football coaching clinics for football coaches from major colleges and universities as well as for youth, high school, junior college, and international coaches of American football. His football savvy is showcased in many venues: “In-Depth” clinics on his Web site www.CoachBass.com, his “Ask the Coach” column on NFLhs.com, at Tom Bass Football Seminars for Women Only, and through successful Coach Bass Sports Maps for NFL and college football.

As an ambassador of the game, Bass has served as president of the Canadian Football League team, the Sacramento Goldminers, and was on the board of directors for the International Football Federation of American football, which covers four continents and 23 countries. Major corporations such as IBM, Coca-Cola, and Anheuser-Busch have hired him for his speaking talents, and he has been the featured guest on numerous sports talk and interview shows on radio and television, including HBO, ABC Nightly News, and ESPN.

Tom and his wife, Michelle, live in Carlsbad, California.

Reviews of this Book

”Successful people have an understanding of, and appreciation for, the fundamentals and details of any organization. Coach Bass does the best job of providing the details and instructions for everyone in the game. His skillful approach to teaching the basics and attention to the finer points are unparalleled.”

Joe Tiller
Head football coach
Purdue University

”Tom has always been regarded as one of the great minds in the game of football. Football coaches on all levels will find great benefit from his thoughts and principles.”

Pete Carroll
Head football coach
University of Southern California

About American Football

American football, known in the United States as football, is a sport played between two teams of eleven. The objective of the game is to score points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. The ball can be advanced by running with it or throwing it to a teammate. Points can be scored by carrying the ball over the opponent's goal line, catching a pass thrown over that goal line, kicking the ball through the opponent's goal posts or tackling an opposing ball carrier in his own end zone.

In the United States, high school football, college football and professional football are played under slightly different rules. High school football is governed by the National Federation of State High School Associations, college football by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, while the major professional league is the NFL.

The sport is also played in Europe, Japan and Mexico. The International Federation of American Football acts as an international governing body for the sport. American football is closely related to Canadian football but with some differences in rules and the field.

Because the game stops after every down, giving teams a chance to call a new play, strategy plays a major role in football. Each team has a playbook of dozens to hundreds of plays. Ideally, each play is a scripted, strategically sound team-coordinated endeavor. Some plays are very safe; they are likely to get only a few yards. Other plays have the potential for long gains but at a greater risk of a loss of yardage or a turnover.

Generally speaking, rushing plays are less risky than passing plays. However, there are relatively safe passing plays and risky running plays. To deceive the other team, some passing plays are designed to resemble running plays and vice versa. These are referred to as play-action passes and draws, respectively. There are many trick or gadget plays, such as when a team lines up as if it intends to punt and then tries to run or pass for a first down. Such high-risk plays are a great thrill to the fans when they work. However, they can spell disaster if the opposing team realizes the deception and acts accordingly.

The defense also plans plays in response to expectations of what the offense will do. For example, a "blitz" (using linebackers or defensive backs to charge the quarterback) is often attempted when the team on defense expects a pass. A blitz makes downfield passing more difficult but exposes the defense to big gains if the offensive line stems the rush.

Many hours of preparation and strategizing, including film review by both players and coaches, go into the days between football games. This, along with the demanding physicality of football (see below), is why teams typically play at most one game per week.

Football Skills and Drills