Know What Type of Receiver Your Up Against in Football

Series Summary

The offense is marching the football toward your end zone like a well-oiled machine. Time is running out and just two points remain from your once-substantial lead. A touchdown will send your team home losers, just minutes away from the district title. What you need is a turnover to change the course of the game. Their quarterback goes back to pass. Full back stays back to block, tight end runs a sideline pattern. You recognize the play from the first quarter. But you won't get fooled again. You stay back until the ball leaves the quarterback's hands, then step in front of the tight end at the last minute. Interception! The game is saved by one of the most exciting of all football plays.

In this free series of football coaching videos, our championship coach Sean Hobson tells you everything you need to know about getting that crucial interception during the big game. Learn how to read offensive formations and then figure out what the quarterback is planning when he drops back to throw a pass. Once the ball is in the air, coach Hobson shares his insight on how to get between the ball and the receiver, then time your jump just right so the intended receiver will be chasing you back down to the opposite end of the field. And make sure to avoid the pass interference call or all of that celebrating on the sidelines will come to a quick end.

Video Transcript

"This is Sean Hobson for Expert Village. And I want to talk now about being able to read the receiver as being either a quarterback or a line backer matched up. Any type of free safety that comes up to cover somebody. One of the important things you've got to do, is whether its through film study or whether its through watching the receiver or playing him a couple of times is, you've got to figure out what type of receiver you are playing. Now you can see that he's a pretty big receiver. So that's going to factor into it a little bit too. Because I know that he's probably going to want to go out and get into a junk ball situation with me. I also know this is not the type of guy I'm going to want to come up and play bumper run coverage with, because he's a little bit bigger than I am. But I think I'm quicker than him, so I'm trying to figure all this out. If you've got a fast receiver lined up against you, one thing you want to do is give him a little more cushion. Because if I play up close, and he's a lot faster than me, then he's going to go by my quickly and I'm going to be burnt from the word go. So what I've got to make sure I do is, I've got to figure out if this guy is fast, or if he's slow. And that way I'm going to give him more cushion, or if he's slower then I'm going to play up in him. If I'm bigger and stronger than him, I may want to play up tighter. So if you're talking about trying to read a receiver and intercept a ball, the first step is you got to figure out what type of receiver you are playing against."