Defensive Secondary

           The most important part of the defense is the secondary.  You are the last line of defense.  The secondary carries the burden of a defense being successful.

Qualifications of playing in the secondary are speed, quickness, peripheral vision, timing, and body control.  There is also a very important non-physical aspect to playing in the secondary, the ego.  In other words, proper confidence, the only way to develop proper confidence is through successful experiences.  Once you realize you have the ability to be successful on a fairly constant basis, the next step is to master your skills, and hone your technique, and work until you can be successful over and over again.

Pass coverage technique

Stance

Feet shoulder width, outside foot up, weight evenly distributed on the balls of the feet.  Relax the arms and bend at the waist. Your stance should look the same in every coverage so that you don’t tip off the offense of what coverage is being played. Be comfortable and relaxed in your stance but stay alert and aware of your opponent and responsibility.

Footwork

Your back pedal is the most basic technique that needs to be mastered as a defensive back.  You have to be able to back pedal at maximum speed without crossing your feet in order to be successful in the secondary.  Your first step in your back pedal is the push off of your front foot.  It sounds simple but most defensive backs are wasting a step in this action.  This wasted step is called a false step.  The player is actually taking a step forward before he starts his back pedal.  That gives the wide receiver that you are covering a head start on his route. The false step is easily remedied by taking read steps.  The perfect alignment for the corners is 9 to 10 yards off of the receiver.  This is where read steps come in to play.  Read steps are 3 to 4 slow pedals to allow you to read the three step of the QB.  Once the QB drops pass the three step you get into your regular pedal taking your proper leverage.

Alignment & Technique

Off Technique:

Corners: Align 9 to 10 yards off of the receiver, if you align any closer you won’t have the proper time to read the QB’s three step.  There are two ways to play off technique, sit and the three step or take read steps.  Either way you have enough time to react to the receiver because your 9 to 10 yards deep.

Safeties:  in a two safety shell  defense, the strong safety is 7 to 10 yards deep off of the Tight end.  The free safety is 10 to 12 yards deep off of the weak tackle. 

 Whenever there is a single deep safety he is to line up on the guard to the passing strength. When playing off technique you always want to maintain your leverage on the receiver.  Meaning if you have inside leverage you need to stay to the inside, the same is true if you had outside leverage.

Press technique:

Align ½ yard off of the receiver, depending on the receivers split will determine if you use inside or outside leverage on the receiver.  If you have help always play the leverage away from your help.

Jam rule:  Allows defenders to maintain contact with the receiver in a 5 yard zone beyond the line of scrimmage.

Coaching points

a) Defensive backs play pass first unless they have run force responsibility

b) Stay low and maintain your pedal as long as possible when playing off

c) Focus on the receiver but peripheral the QB

d) Keep the proper leverage on your receiver as he releases

e) Know the route tree, as the receiver gets deeper you can eliminate possible routes that can be run

f) Intercept the ball every opportunity that you have.  Anyone can bat it down!

g) Eliminate wasted motion

h) If ball is caught drive on the receiver from outside in and make the tackle.