Initiate Contact to Avoid Football Tackle

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Sean Hobson, for Expert Village. What we're talking about now is how to keep our running backs and our wide receivers from being tackled. One good thing you can do is, if you're going to take some contact and if you're going to get tackled anyway, you want to try to initiate the contact. You might as well go ahead and deal out some punishment if you're going to get hit anyway. Also, sometimes, if you're the aggressor, and you put the hit on the defender, sometimes you can knock that guy off balance and you can get out of the tackle and escape and pick up more yardage. So, you always want to be the aggressor. You always want to be the person that makes the hit, not the person that takes the hit, and try to pick up additional yardage. Here's what this looks like when we walk through it (video demo). When our running back or receiver approaches the defensive guy he wants to break down and explode into the defender in order to knock him off balance. Sometimes the defender will be so knocked off balance he won't even make the tackle. Sometimes he will be able to wrap up a little bit, but our running back or receiver may pick up an additional couple of yards off of making the contact. Remember, you always want to initiate the contact, drive through the tackler and try to pick up as much positive yards as you can."