How to Hold & Throw a Football

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Sean Hobson for Expert Village. What we want to talk about right now is the proper way, first of all, to hold the ball for your quarterback to make an effective throw. You can see here that our quarterback is going to start with his pinky here in the middle and then he's going to grip the laces. But, the top two fingers where he's going to make his release point are down towards the end of the ball. There's one major reason you don't want to grab the ball across the middle, because it's much bigger in the middle. If you have smaller hands it's very hard to throw a football gripping it across the middle. Now, if you have really large hands sometimes it's more comfortable to grip the football on the bigger part of the football. But, most people will grip it towards the top. That way you can get a nice release and you can kind of squeeze the ball as it comes out. Now the proper technique to throwing the ball once he has it back, first of all, you want to have good balance; we talked about being on your toes. The first thing is, as you make up your mind to come through you want to, first of all, always step with the throw. You never want to throw on your back foot and you never want to throw setting. You always want to step through to throw. So, first thing, he's going to step. Second thing you see is his elbow release as he comes through. That's going to give you velocity coming through, that's going to clear anybody if they're close, and that's going to help you to stay balanced as you come on through. Then, as you finish the throw he's going to come on through just like a karate chop and he's going to release it, all his fingers at one time, the index finger's going to release at the end, and you're going to pop the ball on through and come on down with your follow through. You never want to leave the ball up or you're going to hang it high. So, you always want to follow through. It's going to look a little bit like this. "Good." And that's the proper mechanics to throwing the ball for a quarterback."