How to Catch a Football

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Tim Gardener with ExpertVillage.com; we’re going to be going over some advanced techniques in football. Okay there are three main steps to catching a football; number one is to always try your best to catch the ball away from your body. Okay, you always want to catch the ball away from your body that eliminates the chance of it bouncing off of your body into the defender’s hands. So you always want to catch away, you want to get your hands out in a diamond shape, you don’t want to attack the ball, you want to absorb the ball. You want to have strong hands, but you want to have a soft touch. You want to absorb the ball into your body, you grab it, keeping your eyes on the ball the whole time all the way until it’s tucked in and then you want to bring the ball into your body, still in that same position. As you bring the ball into your body, judging by where you are on the field, you need to make a smooth transition to tuck the ball away. Holding the ball like this or like this after a catch can put you at serious risk for a strip or a fumble, so the action needs to look like this. you receive the ball in, pull it into your body make a decision, wrap it up tight, seal it right here with your hand because the first thing someone is going to do when you try to tuck it away initially is swipe it out. So you want to put an extra sealant with your hand on top of the ball initially until you feel like you’ve got a little more freedom to run with the ball. So it’s going to look like this, catch it, pull it in, tuck it, protect. Catch it, pull it in, tuck it, protect. "