Developing Your Screen Game

This episode of 'Coaching 101' podcast, hosted by Daniel Chamberlain and Kenny Simpson, focuses on the intricacies of screen plays in football, the impact of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) on college football, and coaching strategies. The hosts share personal travel plans, and then delve into a detailed discussion about the NIL's effects on college athletics, specifically highlighting Nick Saban's critique of NIL and its influence on athletes' attitudes. The conversation transitions to a comprehensive analysis of screen plays, categorized into different types based on their execution and purpose. The hosts discuss strategies for implementing effective screens, securing successful blocking, and ensuring catch and run efficiency. Additionally, tips on teaching and executing screens, quarterback handling, and receiver tactics are covered, aiming to make screens an extension of the run game. The episode ends with lessons on forcing defenses to defend horizontally and utilizing screens to exploit this strategically.

00:00 Welcome to Coaching 101: Introductions and Spring Break Plans
00:52 Exploring Europe: A Father-Daughter Adventure
02:31 Nick Saban's Controversial Take on NIL and Its Impact
07:39 The NIL Debate: Fans, Funding, and the Future of College Football
09:12 Diving Deep into the Screen Game: Strategies and Types
19:01 Why Screens Matter: Simplifying the Game for Success
24:01 Unlocking the Mental Game: Simplifying Plays for Young Quarterbacks
25:07 Mastering Screen Plays: Techniques and Strategies
27:33 Elevating Your Game: Advanced Screen Play Tactics
37:28 Coaching Wisdom: Lessons on Offense and Defense
39:55 Maximizing Resources: Coaching Tools and Community Engagement
43:16 Closing Thoughts: The Power of Persistence in Coaching


What types of screen are there?

• Slow
• Fast/Bubble
•  RPO (divorced concepts), “pitch” part of the option
• Tunnel

Why is it important to throw screens?

• Easier to block 1 guy
• Athletes in space
• Forces to defend full field

How do you teach screens?

• Blocking - MDT
• Get 3-5 yards then dance
• Extended run game

What NOT to do as a Coach

• Today’s Lesson: “not force people to defend each player/area”

Social Media

• Daniel
  • Twitter: @CoachChamboOK
  • Email: chamberlainfootballconsulting@gmail.com
• Kenny
  • Twitter: @FBCoachSimpson
  • Email: FBCoachSimpson@gmail.com
• Coaching 101 Podcast
  • Twitter: @Coaching101Pod

Daniel Chamberlain:

@CoachChamboOK

ChamberlainFootballConsulting@gmail.com

chamberlainfootballconsulting.com

Kenny Simpson:

@FBCoachSimpson

fbcoachsimpson@gmail.com

FBCoachSimpson.com

Transcript

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0:04

What's up coaches? This is the coaching 101 podcast. I'm Daniel Chamberlain. Daniel Chamberlain. I can't say my own name here with Kenny Simpson. I got your name down. I guess that's good. Uh, I would say we don't say our own names a lot, but I'd say mine twice a week. So, um, recording for the second night in a row. It's been a good week. Spring break coming up. I'm sure all you guys that are listening are just about to come off. I don't know. Some, some states are weirdly timed, right? So maybe you're about to go on to spring break, but we're all right in this region. So happy breaking to you guys. Um, it's, it's, I'm gonna go ahead and say I had a great week and I'm haven't even got there yet because I know I just need this break. This is the one that I need more than any kid, any other teacher. The break is necessary. yeah, I'll be, my daughter and I, if you're listening to this, we just got back from trampsing around Europe a little bit for her senior spring break, so I don't know if I'm going to be I will not be rested, but hopefully we'll have had a good experience. Yeah, are you, um, like, are you just doing England, Germany, Uh, Italy and Italy and Greece. And so it's a school trip. So we just paid for her to go. And I'm going as just her, just going as a dad, you know, so kind of a fun little trip here. And you know, when they're seniors, you try to do all you can. So, No, for sure. And that's, that's really neat. Um, and in today's climate, I think it's really neat that you're going because there are plenty of things out there in the world that, uh, you know, you, you could have to, I just want to turn your kids loose and let them go with some group of people either. So, I think it's really neat you get that opportunity. That's, yeah, we're part of, have you been to that part of the world I have, I've actually, my wife and I went to Greece and then Avery, who's my daughter. When she was young, we went to Italy. So she's actually been to Italy, but never been to. The part we're going and then to Greece, Well, that's really neat. I, the military let me go to, uh, England. In Germany, and then of course, a bunch of those sandy countries over there. But those two were a lot of fun. I had a lot of, a really good time. Both countries, England was, I could live there. It was, it was wonderful. I guess the. Obviously the political and laws and all that stuff would make things different, but the food was delicious. I don't, a lot of people say England has bad food, but I absolutely enjoyed it's okay. It's a lot like, a lot like going to New York, you know, very culturally diverse. yeah, a lot of different. Um, so what do you think about a Saban's new outbursts on, on really NIL and, and it seems like you kind of just said the kids are terrible nowadays. Yeah, he's on a war path. I mean, it's, and you can tell I'm not, maybe do two caveats on this. And I'd like to hear your thoughts because you may know more than I do about exactly what went down, but essentially from what I understand is. He is obviously against the NIL, um, and the, the effects that we didn't know it was going to have. Which I think most people would agree that something needs to be done. It's like, I don't think anybody out there says what's going on now is good. But I don't think that everything that's going on right now is bad either. Like I think it's ironic to hear a guy who profited heavily. Off of the backs of players, and I'm just going to go ahead and say what I don't know if a lot of people are saying. If we don't think Alabama wasn't already paying guys to go to Alabama, I think we're, you know, we got our head in the sand somewhere. So, it's almost, it looks like sour grapes of, for a long time, you guys were the only ones who were really doing stuff like this. You had the monopoly of everything you wanted, and now that the field was leveled, you didn't really know how to compete. So that's what it looks like to me from the outside. I don't want to, I'm bitter about Nick Saban cause I'm a Dolphin fan and I watched him epically fail in the NFL. And so while I'm not going to bash him, cause I think he's probably the best as the best collegiate coach resume of all time, you can't argue that you kind of look at this episode is almost like the pot calling the kettle black. I mean, like you're now mad. Other people are making money. It looks to me. Like when the, when it got tough, when it got to where you didn't have the dominant players, you didn't want to be part of the game anymore. That's what it looks like from the outside. Now you may know more than I do about what he actually said. No, I, I, you know, the, His retirement comments about why, you know, him and Miss Terry finally just called it quits. And he really talked about the kids attitudes and throwing their helmets after they lost the national championship game. And, um, just, you know, not not actually having the standard that he was used to coaching. And then he tied a lot of that into because, you know, in his Recruiting is like you bring a kid in and the first question I was mounted. What are you gonna pay me? Like what am I gonna get to where it used to be? And and i'm once again, what was going on, you know behind closed doors and money is is completely separate But there's definitely been, whether that was the case or not, there's a change in the attitude Oh yeah. of athletes overall. I mean, um, if that was happening behind closed doors, I feel like, you know, the transfer portal opened up the chaos just as much as the money did. So, um, so him just stating, you know, hey, it's time to go because these kids have lost their minds on What it means to be here that, you know, I concur with that. Like there's, we see that in the classrooms, right? We see the apathies. We see the, I'm not going to do what you tell me to do. I'm not, I don't care. Um, and there's no money on the line here. It's literally a free education. So, um. I can kind of understand that side with, with NIL and in total, you know, today he endorsed the, I say today, and it's going to be a week or two before this comes out, but the revenue sharing, which, you know, maybe that's, I guess that's one good thing about putting him on that panel. They put him on for NIL at Congress because he does have an understanding of what kids need or want. And, and if it is revenue sharing where the school gets to be the people paying instead of. all the chaos around NIL right now, then maybe that is the way out of all this. But, Well, you just, it's, it's, I understand the frustration from him and a lot of college football fans, but it's ruining the game. It really is making it different than it used to be to the point where you kind of wonder when is it just going to become like a minor league? Like, when are we going to go from high school? So maybe like a minor league or club system, because let's be honest, nobody going to Alabama right now is going there for the education. Like if you're going to be able to play at that level of football, it's good that you can get an education, but I don't know if we necessarily need to tie those two things together. And so it's almost like certain schools need to just kind of become their own. ish type league. And so it's a mess though. You know, I'm not a, a lot of my friends are big college football fans and you know, it's, it's not what it used to, I've always been more of a pro fan, uh, where a lot of my friends are, are college fans, but it's just kind of different. And so I, you understand the frustration from Nick Saban and obviously he carries a big voice. It just. I found it, I don't know, it's, hard to swallow from him. Yeah. When, uh, you know, I can tell you NIL, my, my feelings on it real quick and then I will move on and we won't, we won't waste this whole episode on college football. But, um, my biggest issue, I don't care. The kids are getting paid. I don't care. People are coming out of pocket to pay them. What's really gotten under my skin is now that each school has opened up their own NIL donation pot. And it's like, I'm not a good enough fan anymore. If I don't donate 10 percent of my income to the local college NIL fund to help my team with, well, we're going to lose championships. If you don't give us some of your money, like truly don't care that much. I am a huge OU fan. There are a lot of fans on social media right now that are screaming, you better give to the Krenselman cream NIL fund because. Otherwise we're going to fall behind. Well, it's not my job to pay the kids. It's not my job to fund the college. That's also taken 40, 000 a semester to go there to get a piece of paper. Uh, it's not my job to keep them afloat so that they can have a good day. So it's just, that's where it's gotten me a little sour on NIL. I'll never quit being a Sooners fan, but the fans, the other fans that are now. I don't even know what they're, the trumpeters of NIL are the ones that really just drive me nuts. So if you're a guy like me and you just want to be a fan of your college football team, you absolutely can do that without judgment or needing to donate your hard earned money for any of that. It's just, it's ludicrous. The fans became the source of income instead of the schools and that changed it. So anyway, off NIL tonight, we're talking a little bit of screen game, um, and, and kind of some different types of screens that you can run. It's something we haven't covered on the podcast before. And, and as we're, you know, kind of progressing here into season three, already our fifth episode in. So that's man, we're just, uh, you know, rubber to the road, just making tracks here. So it's pretty neat. Um, you guys are listening. Thank you so much for sticking around and being part of our download numbers and listen to us. Keep reaching out, um, emailing us. And if you want to come on the show or whatever, you got an idea for an episode, by all means, let us have them. Um, came before we get started talking here. Would you like to tell us how to keep football simple for our staff and for our players? Sweet. All right. Thank you, coach. Um, you know, each time now, I just wanna make sure we're pointing out that, you know, those guys, a sports and a pro com, they have your best interest in mind. Reach out to them. You cannot say enough about, have almost absolutely free fundraising for your program. Uh, shoot Kenny an email and talked about it, right? I mean, that's, that is it's cheat code, absolutely a cheat code. And in a world where we want everything easy and just Google it, just Google a sports and go talk to Mark. So, um, sweet. So question number one here. What types of screens are there Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different ways you can kind of slice this up. And, and I'll start off by saying, you know, every year, when we reevaluate our offense, and we're, we're, you know, we're gun tees, a lot of guys that are listening to this kind of know what we run, but, which means we do have an element of spread. In our office, we're in the shotgun. We have two or three receivers at a time, maybe four, depending on the set and what we're looking at. So we have that element in it. And so if you're one of those guys that you have that you're in, that you're in the shotgun or you're, you're going to have at least two receivers. You know, the screen game has got to become almost an extension of your run game. It's kind of a, you look at, I look at kind of in different groupings as we're installing, you know, you have your run game, then you have like play action pass off of the run game. And then a lot of times you'll have that extension, kind of a, a lot of people call it a gift. Like a screen off of that. And so that's, that's one level of screens is almost like a divorced concept. I call it a divorce concept. Like you were going to have a run play, but over here, these guys are running a bubble screen, or these guys are running a fast screen, or these guys are, maybe it's just a one receiver, just throw the hot rod to them. And so it could be whatever that looks like, but I kind of consider that to be. A lot of times, the first screen that we install and because that marries really well with just your general grip it and rip it, you know, you're just grabbing the ball, you're throwing it out there, but it's a low, it's a low install because the only guy blocking for the screen or the other receivers out there, like, they're not pulling linemen out there. No one's going out there. It's just the quarterback decides. That looks better than the run. So that's kind of the first level of screen we would do. Really, the only guys that are blocking are the receivers. You know, when the line is blocking a run play. So that's kind of, to me, level one in screens is that one. Then the next level would be like, we'd call like a missile screen, or it could be a fast screen, whatever you want to call it in your offense, but now you're going to involve linemen, or you're going to involve backfield players. So this is a design play, there's no option. We're going to grab the ball. And we're going to throw the screen out there and the linemen on the play side are going to run out there and try to handle whatever's showing up. Or maybe it's a backfield player or a tight end or an HVAC or whatever, but we're going to involve more guys kind of into that screen and it's not going to be a, it's not going to be an option. We're throwing the screen no matter what. Okay. So that's screen option number two for me is that one. Then as you kind of work down from there, we have like, maybe part of a triple option to look where I'm going to, um, maybe make a quarterback, making a handoff or a pull read. And when I pull it, I'm running, but if I don't like what I'm seeing, I might throw a bubble screen or a fast screen out there. Or it could be the same side, like maybe it's like a quarterback design QB sweep, but on the same side you're running a bubble or a fast screen and you're reading a defender. So that's really kind of an RPO, but it marries kind of well with the screen where it's a little bit different. Because you're not going to block a certain guy. So it does take a little bit of time with your receivers to understand, Hey, on this one, we're reading this guy. Don't block him. So there's, it's kind of its own next elements of step one, divorce con step, step two, fast screen, missile screen, whatever, step three, kind of a pitch part of the option. And then I think step four are those slow developing screens. Uh, and you can, might even put those in two categories. You might have like a tunnel screen, which is kind of a. Let the defense run and throw it to a receiver, or it could be to a back. He pretends the pass protect and then leaks out and you throw it to him. But I would categorize both of those under the umbrella of a slow screen. Like that's going to be, we're going to show pass. Invite you upfield and then we're going to throw a screen after you've rushed. So kind of a slower developing screen. And you can, as you get into that world, you can pair a lot of these things up. So a lot of times we'll have a past concept on one side and a slow screen. If we don't like the past concept. So again, I don't want to just completely go crazy and all the different rabbit trail, but that's kind of how we would categorize them. You've got divorce concepts. Fast screens, then you have like RPO ish, you know, the option pitch type stuff. Then you have slow developing screens, and that's kind of your general broad categories. the, um, you talk about all the rabbit trails and you definitely could, you could start tying a lot of things, uh, me and Bo Collins, who's been on the show before and he was a good friend of mine. Now, my old head coach, we've been talking a lot lately about his taking rocket toss and then basically running a, an RPO screen out of it, right? We're just going to read that corner and throw a go route or just keep running with it. So you can start tying a lot of things in the screens, which I think is what makes them so universal. You know, later we're gonna talk about why we need them and how we're gonna teach them. Um, those running back, those leak out screens, dude, those are, those are vicious in, in today's world because it seems like every defense now people are just trying to be so aggressive, right? We're big into blitz pads and pressure pads and how we're going to really get after the offense and then. There he goes. So, um, it's good, uh, you know, whenever we were talking about starting this episode, I really didn't even think about, um, you know, like now screens and tunnels and bubble screens. Um. Absolutely. Those have to be included, right? Which just, it's just a little different way of doing it. So, um, that, that's great, great breakdown of those. That's a great way to kind of conceptualize them. And that way you don't get too many of the same kind, you know, that's what you're always worried about too many plays that hit a gap when you don't want too many of the exact same type of screen, because You're trying to take advantage of a different thing on the defense, right? Sometimes it's just numbers and sometimes it's aggression. And, and so I think it's really good to have them separated. So you can get, you know, one or two of And you used to watch, you used to watch the Patriots when they had Tom Brady. Uh, he was an expert at just those slow screens, just kind of knowing when to call them, how to call them. Now it's kind of evolved to where you watch the Kansas City Chiefs. And watch the way they run multiple types of screens. Um, they did it this year, I think, to hide the fact that the receivers weren't great. You know, and their offensive line was kind of okay. Uh, but they do a great job of screens to the running back, and screens to the receiver, and types of screens. So if you really want to watch an NFL team that shows off a lot of that, I think the Chiefs would be a really good Kind of a case study kind of team at war. You could go back and watch old Patriot film and when they used to, I can't. And then, you know, before him, you even had a Peyton Manning. I thought he was the expert of recognizing a coverage because you really want to run screen against man. You know, and I think that's, you kind of want to run those tunnel screens, slow screens against man. And you want to run those fast screen bubble screens against zone. And so he would. Having a quarterback that could recognize it. Obviously, if Peyton Manning do whatever you want to, but the idea of how he knew how to call a play. So those are, if you're listening to this episode and you want to go watch some teams that do it really well. That's who I'd kind of lean to I mean, you got to look at, um, you talk about Kansas city chiefs. And I mean, they've leaned on it, especially the last two years. The, the average amount of time or average distance that Patrick Mahomes touchdown passes travel through the air. The last two years are four and a half and 3. 9 yards respectively. So he's When he throws touchdowns, they're not even going five yards deep, which is the no cover zone in high school, right? Like we don't even cover it five yards, everything he hits, there's going for and he's big screen crossing game tunnel screen I mean, that's really what the chiefs were had they had to because of the personnel so, you know, just need to see that it can be, I mean, when the Super Bowl two of them in a row, actually. So, uh, and that's with his lowest distance thrown in the air total. So, um, so why is it important to throw these screens coach? Well, there's a couple reasons, you know One is the first one the obvious one is it's generally easier to block for them Like usually you're having to block one or two or maybe three players depending on the type of screen you're running So like you throw a fast screen out there You know, basically it's your athlete versus their athlete, and you only have to block one guy. You know, and when you run the ball, five, at least five, because of the linemen, at least five guys have to do their job successfully for the play to have a chance. When you throw a screen, now only one or two guys has to do their job successfully. Or, on the offensive line, you are maybe, uh, influencing people, so the job is easier. You're allowing them to use their own technique to run upfield. And then you're getting out to where now you only have to block two linebackers. So, the amount of people you have to successfully block is way lower in the screen game than it is in the run game. So that's, to me, reason number one. Uh, reason number two is it's an easy way to get the ball to athletes. You know, generally, depending on how your offense is structured. You're going to have two or three different guys that you're just trying to get into space. I think that's a big key for most coaches is how can I get my best athlete with the ball in his hands with room to make a play like, you know, where he's got room to do something, you know, I don't want a low percentage deep ball, or maybe it's harder to throw a certain route, but we ought to be able to catch screens as our high percentage plays. We should be able to dial it up to our best kid. And then we should have, you know, 5 to 6 yards worth of green. In front of him where he can go make a play. And that would, that would be on any of those screens we talked about. So, that's reason number two. And then I think the big one is you're forcing the defense to kind of do two things. One, you're forcing them to slow down their pass rush. So if you're running those tunnel screens, slow screen, whatever, you're making them slow down coming after the quarterback. The other one is you're making them defend the full width of the field. You know, we want to make you defend the entire width of the field. If you don't feel the threat of a screen or quick game coming out, those, what I call conflict guys, so outside linebackers, safeties, they're going to keep creeping tighter and tighter and tighter to the box. So you got to make them go out there and honor it. Like, you gotta throw a couple out there so they know, and if I get too close to the box, they have a fast kid out there and they are willing to throw him the ball. And so, even just throwing one or two screens ought to kinda ease the box. Cause you're making the defense stretch out. And then if you hit them on a slow screen or two, you're gonna make them slow down. Those third down blitz packages don't, they look foolish. If you throw a screen right in the middle of it. And so you kind of slow down those guys that want to just get after you. And so it's, it gives you some answers to some of the things that demons are trying to do. Yeah, I, um, you kind of mentioned my point a while ago. We're talking Kansas State Chiefs and you know, you're trying to make up for not having those star athletes at wide receiver anymore. I mean, the guys they have obviously are phenomenal athletes, but respectively, you know, they definitely miss like Tyreek Hill just taking the top off of things. Um, and then at our level, you know, you've got a quarterback to worry about too. Um, and You're, you're doing amazing things and, and the offense you allow people to purchase and, and get installed, you know, you can run the ball a lot with some very short passes, and I think that helps. I mean, I think I said last episode, like if I was an NFL guy, who, what would I do? I would fund my quarterback first. Well, we don't all have that kid, nor do we have that option. Right? Some of you got NIL, like Oklahoma, I guess technically does, but we ain't out there using it. Um, and so if I need to shorten those throwing. You know, shorten the passes, shorten the routes, the screen game help do that. Um, and then, you know, you can lean right. I think it was just the same way you said you loosen up the box with the screen. Hopefully you can get the running game going if you don't have a stud at a quarterback to open that screen game back up. So make them squeeze down and then just, you know, try to break one out there. But, um, we all, I think would. Love to have a quarterback who can go out and throw a full air raid concept playbook. We just don't have that. And so when you don't, when your guys limit is 20 yards with any kind of accuracy, um, And that's right over the middle. That's not trying to get it out to a hash or the numbers, you know, I think those, those shorter routes and just winging it out there with a kid that can move around and make the past good, right? He's, he's not got a defender stuck to him yet. Um, so he can kind of, he can get low or high or work to, or from the line of scrimmage to make a catch and then get upfield, like you Yeah. And it's not just the, I mean, the physical part is true too. I mean, you're a hundred percent right, Daniel. I mean, like the, that's the easier throw. But also the mental part, like you have a play now where your quarterback, he can't check out. I don't mean to make it sound that way, but he can mentally kind of take a break. Like he knows I'm going to catch the ball and I'm throwing the ball to this guy. Like there's those young quarterbacks you need. Five or six of those throws a game where they, I know they're supposed to make a read. I know you work with them all summer to make the read. But man, it's nice when they know I just got to catch it and throw it to him. And so there's something about the mental part of it too, that you can take that kind of relief off of them, make an easy pass. And now we can get him going a little bit. that's not even a, an alien concept. I mean, we talk, they say that in NFL all the time, right? You listen to a game and like, they just need to get him some easy. Completions confidence back up, right? And so it's why not? Why wouldn't you do that for a 14 to 18 year old that's that's out there for maybe the first time in his whole life, not getting paid millions. So no, absolutely. It's those, those are all great points, coach. Um, so, you know, kind of last part here, how do you teach screens? Yeah, you got to figure out the blocking. So again, those are all different types of screens I gave you. So we'll start off with like. type screens. So that could be bubble screen, fast screen, whatever. Just catch it and get it out there. We always teach what we call MDT, your most dangerous threat. So what we'll teach a lot of times is if there's, let's say there's two receivers, we assume that the corner is the number one threat because we're always trying to get the ball out to the edge on screen. We're trying to get the ball out to the numbers. So we're going to, we're going to attack the corner where we think he would go the most dangerously. So that would mean if we snap the ball. And the corner immediately sprinted forward. That's our aiming point. We're assuming that's the worst case scenario we could get. So that's where we're going to take our footwork to go block. Whether that's a fast screen, and I'm talking about the slot who's blocking. Or that's a bubble, and I'm talking about the wide receiver who's, who's blocking. We're going to assume that corner is coming right now like a hard press, cover two, or man, or whatever. If he doesn't, so now we move, we go up to him like we're expecting him to come, and he leaves because you can see roll cover three, you can see quarters, you can see, there's a lot of things you can see where that quarter, corner is not going to be hard, he's going to bail. If that happens, we need to whip our head around to find who's got the flats. Is that a roll down safety who's coming? I gotta go get him. Is that an outside linebacker who's kind of buzzing out there? So that's the way we work. We call it most dangerous threat. We assume it's the corner. If it's not the corner, then we're going to work to the next guy. And that allows you to kind of work aiming points with your kids. There's a lot of things you could talk about on blocking. I do think there's a ton of different drills you can get in the screen game. We're really big on kind of like basketball screen, essentially. We want to be wide set. We want to push vertically as far as they'll let us. And when they start moving forward, we want to settle. And then we're going to take him wherever he wants to go. And let our athletes be athletes. You know, so that means we want to eliminate holding calls. By not trying to, hey, we have to reach him or we have to kick him or whatever. We just want to get in his way. And then we want to let our athlete be an athlete. So that's, that's the first type of screen. The second types of screens would be like tunnel or slow screens. If we're going to run those, a lot of times we'll designate, um, a player or an area, depending on the defense. So we're throwing like maybe a tunnel or a leak out screen. They're both going to kind of hit the same place. You know, our tackle is taught, or we may do it with our guard, depending on the year. But whichever player is out there first. He's handling the force player. He's looking to kick out whatever shows up. So that might be an outside linebacker, or that could be a roll of safety, or it could be a corner depending on, you know, what sets you're in. The number two guy who's coming out there has play side inside a linebacker. And so if we have three, then he would have the backside. Just depending on how many guys you're wanting to leak out there into space. But that guy kind of knows now I'm coming out there to kick. I'm coming out there to kick out a guy. The other two have got to settle. And again, they're going to work the same type of blocks. The receivers would work, run vertically when we can't run anymore. We want to try to settle and just get in his way and make that guy choose. So you got to kind of get the blocking part first, then you got to work with the guy who's catching the ball because we don't want to throw a screen out there. And this guy dances and runs wherever, you know, so we always tell our guy, if you catch a screen, we want you to get vertical three to five yards, so you need to catch it. and get straight up field three to five yards before you start, you know, playing backyard football. We're okay with you doing that. Like we're very okay with you making guys miss, but you can't dance because especially early in their careers, those kids aren't used to the pursuit level of the defense they're going to see. And they've been playing junior high football, or they've been playing whatever, or they catch anything, do whatever they want to do, and no one's gonna be able to tackle them. Well, now you get up to the high school level, and you get one or two moves, and you're about to get your hold. And so, get vertical. Three to five yards. And then if you want to dance, I'm okay with that at that point. And so we want to make sure we rep that a ton with our receivers. And part of that is catch and tuck because that's where you're going to see fumbles happen is that kid's excited to get the football. He catches the ball, he's running. It's not fully tucked away. And here comes the ball because on a screen. We would hope we don't get hit right away, but those are receivers blocking and every now and then they miss. So you need to kind of be prepared, catch and tuck, and then get vertical, and then dance. And that would be on really any kind of screen. And then we want to make them think of this, this is an extended run game. Like for our quarterbacks, especially. So not really the receivers. I don't really get on receivers about catching and dropping. I've found that you just kind of work on don't throw it to the ones that don't catch it. You know, and so that's kind of our mindset. But we're not gonna, we're not gonna hammer a kid because no kid said, you know what coach, I'm gonna drop this ball. Like nobody said that. So we try not to really get into that world. But we talked a lot about our quarterbacks of these have got to be accurate, catchable footballs. So, uh, one of the phrases I use my quarterbacks all the time is know your audience. Like there are certain things you can say, and there are certain things you wouldn't want to say if certain people were there. If that makes sense, there are certain things you can do and there are certain things you wouldn't want to do if certain people were there. You don't want to throw a 95 mile per hour fastball to an HVAC. Like that's your fault that he dropped that. Or if you throw one as hard as you can to a 9th grader and he drops it, that's your fault. Because you threw a ball he couldn't catch. Know your audience. Give him a ball he can catch. And then as your quarterbacks grow, we start to shrink their target. I got this on the Patriot, one of my favorite movies. When he's up there shooting all the different redcoats. It says, aim small, miss small. So we want to really over, uh, coach. Throw the ball to the upfield shoulder of the bubble screen. Throw the ball to the upfield shoulder of the fast screen. So if we miss and we hit him in the chest, Not a big deal, but we don't want to just tell them, Hey, hit the target. Like we want to give you, Hey, your target is going to be the upfield shoulder. And then our receivers, if they're doing their job, ought to end up at X point on the field. So you want to kind of rep that stuff because you don't want to throw a screen and it be dropped. Cause then you're not going to call a screen because nobody likes second and 10 when you drop the screen. So our kids have got to understand we want to throw screens. We want to throw as many screens as we can possibly throw. Yeah. Cool. But it's gotta be one of those things where we're catching it 99 percent of the time. We're blocking to get 3 5 yards every time. If that's the case, we'll throw a bunch of screens. If some of that's not working, maybe we're not paying attention to our footwork at quarterback and we're not being real accurate. Maybe at receivers we're not blocking, we're not getting 3 5 yards, whatever it is. We're going to have to cut that out. So I think you have to really harp on them. This needs to be another run for our offense. We need to be so good at this that it's just easy for us. Um, you know, when I started teaching defense and how to tackle, I started using, uh, you know, if you can step on their toes, you can tackle them talking about close the space because we got guys that, um, either overshot, you know, and we all see that over pursuit or they get in like a crab stance, like they're playing flag football and they're five yards from the dude and he's putting a move on them and they've already spread their base out right in the run right by them. And so that's something I started using. And When I started coaching wide receivers, I did the same thing for blocking screens. If you can step on their toes, you can block them. Right. I've since seen another way and I'm not sure which is better. Um, but since I've introduced, been introduced to like, you said something pretty similar, but almost like a basketball screen, like you're running to a point. And then you're going to get ready to block and then kind of let the defense go. So you don't get, you know, what do you see? A lot of times wide receivers, they over pursue a block, just like they would a tackle if they were a corner, right? They're going to run out there to a guy who is looking through them. He's looking at the ball carrier and he's going to put one juke move on them. And then they swing and a whiff. Um, and so I've kind of gotten away from that. I don't, I don't, I still want them to be aggressive and go, go get that kid, but we don't have to like close the gap. Like he's, make him come to you too. Uh, and then like what, you know what you said, just take him where he wants to go. Like once he gets to you, worst case scenario, he blows you up. And now he's used all of his momentum and all of his, you know, kinetic energy. He's put it into you. And so he's at a standstill and, uh, and we're gonna put a move on him and get Yeah, we used to do just basically put a cone or something there and so that receiver just knew as long as that guy doesn't touch the cone you win. So like, I can take him in, I can take him out, he can run through me. As long as I don't let him get to the cone I win. You know, so that really helped our kids. and then, you know, kind of the last coaching point there was just own the edge or own the sideline. However you want to put that to your kids. But you said it earlier, Kenny, like bubble screens, fast screen. We want to get to the numbers. We want to get outside and we want to go. And on defense, what do we teach our corners? You have to own the sideline, right? I want you outside, force it back in. And they never do. God, they never do. ever, ever. Our corners, come in and try to play a bubble on his inside they'll run past it. Like our corners will come up so hard, they'll overrun it. And the guy just cuts inside, you know, Vertical seams, right? It happened. It's an extension of the run game. All the same rules fit, right? Your force has got to be there. Uh, you're just passing off that responsibility. So, um, yeah, I mean, that's something that, that, uh, you know, I picked up this year big time was just own that sideline. Get your, let your blockers and your balkier know, like. We're going there and we're all going there together. We're going to convoy out there and there's no one going to get in our way. And when that one corner does show up fine, push him to the sideline and let's go, right? Like take a step back inside and let's, let's get gone. But, um, I struggled last year as a defensive coordinator. You know, Bixby put a whipping on me every time we faced him, it seemed like stinking Cameron was on here the other day, right? He came on the show and talked to us a little about his offensive stuff, but, um, they, they are notorious for throwing bubble screens. And my mentality was. If it's to the trips, I've got you four over three and you want to start with the ball five yards behind the line of scrimmage, like more power to you, dude, let's go, let's play football. But then I realized that it's the corner, right? The same reason duo works, the same reason all these get to the edge and make a corner tackle, you isolate that corner and the kid, he's not doing it. So they quickly taught me a new way to think about even defending the screens. Um, sometimes numbers don't win when, when that kid's got that five yards to again, my best athlete versus your worst tackler. Not always the best for, for the old defensive guys. So, uh, offensive guys keep running them. I mean, that's, you know, never, never give up on a, on a good, a good play. And even if they do drop it or they do, you mess it up a time or two, it's going to be there. They're, they're notorious for, it seems like you talked about earlier that third down and that blitz package is coming. It's third and 11. They've done really great twice. And then here's that slow screen to a running back and there's nobody for 15 yards or whatever. So, um, it's a great one. Well, coach, um, you know, we'll kind of push on through a little bit quicker episode tonight. Um, you know, let's get into our, what not to do as a coach. What is our lesson for tonight? Yeah. So, you know, to me, the lesson for tonight is, you know, as an offensive. Team you've got to force the defense to defend Horizontally, you know, I think for tonight we talk about screens. Maybe you're a under center flex bone team and that's fine You probably didn't make it this far if you were in this episode But if you were you got to make them defend the pitch, I mean you got to make them defend every square inch of that grass. And so an easy way to do that is an extension of the run game, which is the screen game, like we talked about tonight, because I've got to make a defense defend the full width of the field. There's a lot of ways you can do that. Screen game is one. Outside run is another one. Uh, of course you could talk about inside run. So you got, you know, you need to have something that can attack any part of the defense. I'm just talking horizontally. Obviously, you want to have vertical threats too. But it starts off with, how can I make them defend every gap in the run game? How can I make them defend the full width of the field? On both sides, then how can I make them have to honor? If I put a kid out in space, they feel like they have to go honor him. And I think that's a huge, um, reflection of if you're willing to take the screens or not, because I've seen multiple games. We just haven't had the quarterback that could throw it. So even though I did a great job on the whiteboard putting trips out there, they put one and a half guys out there. Because they knew we couldn't throw it out there. And so, I think a big part of this episode is talking about trying to get to the point where you can at least force them to go out there and defend that. Uh, however that needs to look. And again, it doesn't have to be screens. It could be outside runs. To a bunch trips look, but you need to make a defense defend the full width because once they do, you're going to start recognizing there's holes once they wreck up to defend the whole width of the field. There are holes and then that's when you call your place, but if they're not having to go out and defend every part of it, it's easy to put nine guys in the box and there's nowhere to go. So you've got to make them kind of get out there and defend that stuff. Excellent. Appreciate that coach. Uh, one last time. I want to make sure you guys are running over and seeing, you know, given, shoot an email out to, uh, Zach Welchman at procomwelchman. com. Um, the guy's got it going on with the procom headsets. If you need anything, um, you know, they got that new loud mouth things. So you can be in the box and talk to a kid and DC, or they don't have to take their, their, their, uh, headset off and give it to a player, right? They just go talk to the little loud mouth. So if you're needing something like that, you're needing a way I'm. You know, I got to ask the question this week, like, where do you want to coach from the box or the field? Well, we all want to coach from the field, but we also know there's not a, you know, a whole bunch of Educated eyes running around that can be in the box and let us know what's going on So sometimes it truly is the best place to be Maybe that loud mouth is the piece that can Give you back that connection to the kids if you're just a guy that needs to yell at kids or whatever So reach out to uh, zach welchman at procom welchman. com Coach, I know you talked about some academies and opened up or there was a book. Yeah, we got a bunch of things going on here. We got the hats out, you know, the coach's cap is out. So if you're interested in getting, uh, uh, make sure you take care of your skins, whether you buy my hat or not, I would recommend you get a boonie hat or some kind of big hat, but ours has the whistle attached. It's coachescap. com. So you get a Fox 40 whistle and a hat for less than you're probably paying for, for one or the other. Um, and then we also have the academies, the head coach Academy. Uh, we have office of coordinator Academy. Defensive Coordinator Academy, and we just put out our GunTea Quarterback Manual. So if you want a one stop shop to get all our RPOs, all our pass reads, all our protections, and all our quarterback drills. In one place, that's going to be the place to go. That's going to be it for sale over at FBCoachSimpson. com. Awesome. Appreciate it. Social media, you can find me on Twitter slash X at Coach Chambo. Okay. You can email me at any time at Chamberlain football consulting at gmail. com. Um, L A I N on Chamberlain. If you, if you haven't seen it on Twitter or something, um. But yeah, email me anything. I like talking ball. I like answering questions. I like going over scheme and coach helped me. Uh, if you need an idea for graphics or whatever, man, you just hit me up. I like talking to anything, football, um, coach, where can we find you on social media, sir? Uh, all things FBCoachSimpson. So, uh, at FBCoachSimpson on Twitter, um, FBCoachSimpson. com is my website. FBCoachSimpson at Gmail is my email. And then of course, all the Facebook groups. If you're in Facebook, get groups for anything football, just search them. I'm sure you'll find them. Absolutely. Awesome. The podcast is on Twitter slash X at coaching one Oh one pod. Of course you can find us on Spotify. Obviously you're listening to this. You found it somewhere. Um, Apple podcast. If you're there, leave us a review guys. I know that. Um, we're getting to our third season here. It's time for us to start looking at things we might need to change to be better, to reach a broader audience. Share us, share us with your friends. If you've got coaching buddies that, uh, maybe they just need to hear, you know, let's talk about whatever the topic is that week, um, maybe you're just wanting to educate a new coach. 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