Teaching Backside Cutoff

Coaches, we got something for you today that's going to help you become more efficient with your player development. We're going to kill two birds with one stone. We're going to work on building conditioning for your athletes and also skill acquisition in the backside cutoff. Oftentimes what happens to players doing the backside cutoff is paralysis through analysis. We preach footwork, footwork, footwork, that oftentimes the players on the backside end up becoming very robotic. When in fact the backside cutoff is just merely a sprint. So to give you a quick visual here of what we typically see. Here we go. Typically we're going to have two players. We got our guard over here, our tackle. We got our defensive lineman here. And on the backside, we're coaching footwork all the time, be it frontside, passing, whatever it may be. All we talk about here and with coaching is footwork. But the backside, as I mentioned, It's a sprint. You have to go. You have to apply force to the ground violently, get your hips on the track, and own your angle. But this is what we oftentimes see with young players. On you. Good. One more time. One more time. One more time. A little more tempo. A little more tempo. Good. Good, good, good, good. What players don't understand is the fact that when the ball moves, the defensive linemen are moving as well. All the drills that we do, typically the defense or the bag holder, whomever it may be, they're in a static position. And that can be a bit misleading. So what we're going to do now is give the players and you a better opportunity to get a true feel for what's happening once that ball is snapped. So D, come on over. We're going to do two things that I mentioned. Number one, want to get the players in good shape because all you're doing right now is sprinting. And that's what's happening when the backside cutoff. So let's just look at this, this aspect here as functional sprinting. You're sprinting for what you do as an offensive line athlete. And then secondarily, we're understanding how to effectively execute a backside cutoff. Because by coming from the knee, what he's not going to be able to do is focus on losing ground or gaining ground. He's not focusing on his first step. He's purely focused on driving into the sprint. The same way if you're coaching a 40-yard dash, you wouldn't coach your players to step out of the blocks. You would force them or coach them to drive, be violent into that 40-yard sprint. The same thing here. Obviously not going 40 yards. We're going about 5, 6, maybe best-case scenario if you get going, maybe 3 yards. But you have to own that initial movement. So we're going to do here. Let me get that ball going. When you move, it's rolling. The defender's moving as well. On you. Get there. Good. Here we go. Jogging on back. We want to keep a nice tempo. You good? Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. I'm gonna get a little bit wider. A little bit wider. I gotta drive. On you. Get there. Violent. Nice job. Nice job. One more. One more. Now here we go. Here we go. Gotta really get there. Gotta really get there. On you. Nice job. Nice job. So we just accomplished here— we developed skill and a better understanding of what's happening on the backside. And secondarily, we're getting them in great shape. You don't have to beat your athletes up to get them in shape. You want to do things that are going to be appropriate to what's happening in the course of a football game, and that's what you just witnessed here. So you can up the tempo a little bit. Uh, 5, 10 of these, as long as you're focusing on the quality of the reps and not just the volume. We don't want the athletes to get sloppy. So you're going to kill two birds with one stone, coaches. So, hope you guys have a great season this year. Go get 'em.