Watching the Snap as Defensive Tackle in Football

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Sean Hobson, for Expert Village. What we want to talk about now with our defensive linemen is to make sure that they fire off the ball quick and get deep penetration into the backfield. We cannot have our defensive tackles firing off so fast to get across the line that they cause us a five yard penalty because they're offsides. So, there are a couple of things we want to talk about. One, they want to watch the ball as the ball is being snapped. A lot of times the defensive tackles are in close to where the quarterback is and they'll try to time their cadence. The cadence is how the quarterback says, "Hut", or how he says, "Set", or how he says, "Go." Sometimes he'll use a hard count to draw these guys off. If they think they have the timing they'll come across the line and it will be offsides on the defense and cost us five yards. So, we want him to watch the ball. As the center has the ball down, we want him to be in a three point stance ready to fire off and as soon as that ball is released he goes across the line and is in the backfield disrupting the backfield. But we cannot have him jumping across too early and cost us five yards."