Purpose Of The 6-2 Defense in Football

Series Summary

Modern American football began in 1874 and has since been a popular sport for competitive teams of all ages. The excitement of a Monday night gridiron game works down from the bright lights, over a roaring crowd, and through the voices of top sports announcers like the late Howard Cosell or John Madden. In fact, football is now the most-watched sport in America, easily beating out America’s national pastime, baseball.

The object of the game of football is to advance down the field into the opposing team’s end zone. This is called a touchdown and is worth six points. There are other ways score in football, including two-point conversions and field goals. The team with the most points when time runs out wins.

In this free instructional video series, learn how to play a 6-2 defense. Understand how the game works, with an introduction to the basic rules and objectives, as well as a rundown of the offensive and defensive positions on the field. Lessons also include skills and techniques for beginner offensive and defensive players: how to carry the ball, throw a pass, block effectively, punt, and make a solid hand off.

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Sean Hobson for Expert Village. What I want to talk about right now, is when running defensive schemes, one defensive scheme that works really well in youth football is the 6-2. The reason for it is, the majority of the teams, about 85% of their offense, maybe even 90% of their offense is going to be running. So what we're going to do is, we're going to run a 6-2 defense. What that means is, we're going to have 6 down lineman, or we're going to have what they call 8 in the box. And what 8 in the box means is, you are going to crowd the line of scrimmage and you are going to try to stop that run. Now the bad thing is, if you have a quarterback that can drop that quickly and throw quick passes, the 6-2 you might get beat on. But the majority of the time its a great defense to use to come up and crowd the line of scrimmage. Get six up front and get a good push with your front six and then have those two line backers come in and clean the play up behind them. So the 6-2 can be valuable. But if you have a team that can dump off quick passes or that can run quick passes to the outside, the 6-2 may not be something that you want to run. You've just got to feel out the personality that is good for your team."