Bite the Pit Progression Jack Gregory Jack Gregory © 2013 All Rights Reserved

Tackling

Safety first and foremost; You must stress to every player to keep their head up when any contact is being made! If you coach football or play football take the time and watch the video from NATA:

Five Steps To Tackling 1.Take a good angle to cut the ball off from the goal line. 2.Sprint to get there. 3.Five steps away cut your strides in half (get your feet under you). 4.Load/Explode/Go! 5.Violent POP when you hit him!

L.E.G Basic L.E.G Progression Load – your body; ankles, knees, hips, arms are cocked, eyes are on the aiming point/landmark. Explode – your hips up into the runner as you bite the arm pit. Wrap arms, squeeze elbows into sides of runner, lock on cloth. Go – through the runner at full speed Buzz Feet – Load Body – Explode Up – Go Through

Closing Ground and Tackling Eat up space! Sprint to get there. Maintain Leverage! Half Steps! Cut your strides in half when you are five steps away. LOAD! Drop hips, load arms, key landmark. EXPLODE! Your hips into ball carrier, bite the arm pit. Explode your arms up into ball carrier. GO THROUGH HIM! Maintain ground contact and run right through the ball carrier.

Bite the Pit! This simple statement is the best way to tell a player how to make a tackle in my opinion. If you tell a player to literally bite the pit (arm pit) it tells him several things all at once in a single descriptive way. Head Up: Ball side arm pit. Angle: Far side arm pit By biting the pit he has to drop his hips and bend his knees while keeping his chest high and his head up as well as his eyes so that he can make the bite into the arm pit. His hips are now below the ball carrier’s hips. By biting the pit the shoulders are strong, the arms are loaded, and the neck is bulled. The arm pit is fixed it does not move like the ball. It places the tacklers head in the safest part of the ball carrier’s body. When he bites the pit his body will unload up wards and his hips will naturally roll forward into the ball carrier and the arms will wrap up into and around the runner. Contact is made with the far top and front of the shoulder and hips. With a violent up ward rip of the arms and the explosion of the body it will lift the ball carrier and more importantly the ball carrier’s arms away from his body. This means the ball is also away from the body!

Bite the Pit

Bite The Hip! This is a modification of bit the pit. It allows us to teach the above method to smaller defenders and have a method to use against bigger power runners that can be very difficult to bring down. The aiming point is redirected to the ball side hip. The defender will bite the hip pad using the same rule as above. When facing a biologically/physically more mature player: This method is used when teaching small defenders to make tackles. This method is used when facing power runners that have a size/weight advantage. The same exact method is taught as above except the contact is made with the far top and front of the shoulder making contact with the inner thigh board as the arms squeeze the thighs together. The head remains on the outside of the far leg. Head remains up and the neck is bulled because he is biting the hip pad on the far/ball side.