How to Tackle

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Otis Saint Clair and I'm here today to talk to you about how to tackle. There are two basic forms or ways to tackle. Head up, and angle tackling. First let's talk about head up tackling, now as the ball carrier is approaching you, you want to break down with your feet shoulder length apart, hips directly under you, you want to make sure that you keep your feet moving so as you're breaking down you want to chop your feet, just like this, so that you're not stuck so if the ball carrier decides to make a directional move you're able to gather yourself and move with him. Now as you break down you want to make sure that your eyes are on his waist so that you don't get deceived by him juking and jiving, so you're breaking down feet are moving eyes right there on his waist, and then what you want to do is you want to take your face mask, directly into his chest and slide it to one way or the other, wrap up, pull in, and lift with the hips. That will give you an explosive movement to pick him up off the ground to drive him to the ground. The second form of tackling is angle tackling, so if the ball carrier is running towards one sideline or the other what you want to do is you want to make an angle as he's coming make sure that your head is in front of him, to the side the ball is going, so you're going to take your ear hole, put it right on his chest again hitting with this part of your shoulder pad, bar your arms through the wrap, squeeze in, keep your feet moving in jive pull up and tackle. So, just to go over those again, you get head up tackling as you're coming head to head with the running back or ball carrier, break down chop your feet keep them moving, head to the center of the body slide it off, wrap pull and tackle, and then with angling tackle, as he's running towards the sidelines, ear piece head in front, shoot your arms through wrap, pull together and tackle. That's it, my name's Otis, that's how you tackle."