You can only catch so much in the heat of the moment during a game. And you can only see just as much in practice. If you can not see it or if you do not catch it you can not correct it. What I mean by “it” is the mistakes in technique or in false steps, misreads, or breakdown in communication. As a coach we all to often hope that these things just happen because we tell our athletes to communicate, we walk them through their position technique and reads.
We fall victim to our own limitations as a human being. We simply can not watch every athlete during every down of a game or even during practice. This is why film is important to coaches AND athletes. It gives us the opportunity to review everyone. It gives athletes a chance to see what it is we as coaches see when they execute.
However, film alone is not enough..
Film by itself is a valuable tool, however, to make good and accurate decisions about what was done correctly as well as what should we be working on this week during practice, yyou will need to have a detailed list of your play calls. This is something an assistant coach or an enthusiastic parent . Just make sure the person is detail oriented. And while you are at it, you may as well collect statistical information for honors and awrds at the end of the year and or for each week. These two tools will help you not only identify your teams strengths but help you in identifying what you still need to work on. Additionally this data you have collected will help you recognize any paterns in your play calling.
What to do with the film once you have it?
There are two types of watching film The first type at an individual level. Starting with the individual level because this is where all the critical thinking occurs. As a coach, you will watch each and every play at a minimum of 13 times. The first time is simply to see the play in its entirety as if you were a spectator in the stands. The other twelve times you watch the film you will be watching each individual play for the whole play and going through your check list of pros and cons for that plays performance. Example being: Did they lign up right? Did they get in the proper stance? Did they fire off the ball? Then you can look at more specific detailed information like: Did they false step? Did they stay low as linemen or lower their shoulder as a skill player before a hit? Things of that nature. Once you have completed this for each and every athlete on your team you will then be able to see if there are common issues that need worked on. For example is the line not getting low off the ball? Are the skill guys always taking a false step?
The second type of way to watch the film is at the team level. I would never recommend having the entire football team sitting down and watching the whole film; especially with youth players. However, you need to watch some film as a team. What I recommend is picking out your five worst and your five best offensive and defensive plays; giving you a total of 20 plays to watch. This should not take more than 15 minutes with the team and is an INVALUABLE teaching-coaching tool regardless of level of coaching. The key is to make sure that you NEVER make it personal and ALWAYS speak in generalities when speaking on the 10 worst plays of the game. And be specific and point out who did a great or fantastic job on the 10 best plays. Do not forget to point out why things went wrong or went well for the team.
Individual players can watch the film and focus solely on their own performance. I find this extremely difficult for youth players and even a large portion of high school athletes. However, the serious athletes, will take the time to study and learn from the film. They should focus on their own technique and understand why the errors they made cost them or how they “got luck on that one” . It is important that they do not focus too much of their time on the should haves or could haves but rather focus on the technique and personal habits. Being predictable is costly, unless the prediction is that “that kids hits like a mad truck and his technique is like machine work”.
Here are a couple sites that talk more about how to break down film and why:
