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Tuck In Your Shirt!
I have seen many new kickers that have a tendency to approach the plant spot without leading with their outside shoulder at all. While you don’t need to contort dramatically the twist of your torso versus your hips, you do need to lead slightly with your right shoulder during your approach. We usually guide a young kicker’s elbow in order to get the shoulder in the right position. However, if the young kicker has not grasped the concept of the benefits of leading with the outside shoulder, we have a drill that will make clear the benefits of this subtle but important shoulder alignment.
Here is a nice tip to get you to engage your shoulders and hips in your approach. Take your outside arm out of the sleeve of your tee shirt. Now tuck your tee shirt in tight. This will hold your outside arm to your side. Now go through your normal approach and kick. You don’t have your arm to help you generate leg whip. You will naturally use your outside shoulder more to lead the whip that your outside hand and arm should lead. Do this several times and don’t be afraid to move the ball to deeper regions of the field. The longer you have to kick, the more you will have to use your shoulder when you don’t have your arm as a whip trigger. You will soon learn where all the good kickers get all their power.
Calling all Punters . . .
The Coach Radu tip of the week is WALK with the ball! It seems simple enough, right? Too many times, we all forget the basic intangibles that allow us to tag one great punt after another. Below is a bullet point list of how to address the ball, begin your stepping pattern and its benefits.
- Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. This allows you to have even balance and adjust to the inevitable errant snap.
- Bend slightly at the waist and knees as to keep your weight on the balls of your feet. Never get caught on your heels; you’re weight will be behind you on the punt and you’ll lose momentum and lift. REMEMBER…shoulders OVER knees OVER toes!!!
Here’s where we all tend to mess up….
- Regardless of what foot you punt with, your 1st step should be a short step and land DIRECTLY in front of your starting point. Taking a small step helps to maintain correct posture, keeps you in line, keeps the ball in line over your kicking leg and builds momentum. On the other hand, taking a long 1st step means you’re lunging, lowering your drop table (the height you initially hold the ball once you receive the snap and makes it hard to propel yourself into your 2nd and longest step.
- It’s important to remember that when you take your 1st step, DO NOT shift your weight to the other foot. In other words, don’t lean on the other foot while stepping forward!! WHY? Because if you shift your weight, 9 times out of 10, your punting leg / foot will not fall in the direct line from which it started…..resulting in a punt that “hooks”.
Now the part we all love….swing for the fences!
- Once you take that short 1st step and your ball is over your punting leg and you’re still inline….EXPLODE into that 2nd step!!!!!
- As you start to take your 2nd step, keep in mind that you should release your guide hand from the ball but still holding on to the ball with your dominant hand. This helps to keep coordination, technique, posture, explosion and follow-through intact.
- As your 2nd step falls, drop the balls and swing away, making sure you follow-through going UP in the air NOT down field!!!!
The punt doesn’t start with a small short 1st step….there are MANY other variables that precede the 1st step but if you practice a short 1st step and not let yourself get discouraged, you’ll stay square throughout your punt, keep your momentum going and get “lift” on your follow through.
Under Punt, Not Over Punt...
Maximize accuracy and consistency by managing trajectory of punts. Let’s analyze the trajectory of these three punts. The blue and the red punts are hit with traditional high degree of take-off. The green punt is hit with a lower degree of take-off. The green punt has the preferred trajectory for three reasons:
1. Creates a more consistent driving punt.
2. Fly time and apogee is elongated.
3. Angle of decent is steeper. Harder to handle and puts the receiver in a stationary position for reception.
I want to make sure that it is clear that there should be no confusion with the tip titled “Punters Punt Up, Not Out”. The goal is to punt up with the right launch angle. All of your power and energy should be fired straight up at impact, exactly as it says in the “Punters Punt Up, Not Out” section.
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?... Does Anybody Really Care?
I get asked this question at least once a week during the season. “Coach, how fast do I need to get my field goal kick off?”
This question has different answers for different leagues. I always answer this question by first rephrasing the question for my students. Let me do the same here.
The correct question is “Coach, how fast SHOULD I be getting my field goal kick off?” I have to rephrase the question because most high school, (if not all high school) head coaches don’t know what the question should be, let alone the answer. This does not make them bad coaches, it just means that they frequently don’t know how fast their kicker should be getting the kick off. Many head coaches will tell their battery (snapper, holder, kicker) that they need to get the ball off in 1.1 to 1.3 seconds. Bad advice! In high school the correct answer is, that you DON’T want you kicker making contact with the ball in LESS THAN 1.3 seconds, nor more than 1.6 seconds. AND…the ‘less than’ number is much more important that the ‘more than’ number.
I can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the chance of making a kick in high school by a Precision trained kicker is minimized less by distance and wind than by the snap and hold. Snap and hold in high school is, quite frankly, an adventure. High school is a far cry from the NFL, where times need to be 1.0 to 1.35 for a reasonable ‘get off’ time. In high school, your center is usually an athlete that plays at least one other position. He is not a specialist that you get to practice with for an hour per day. In high school, your holder is also almost always a player that plays another position as well. In the NFL you have a long snapper that is ONLY a long snapper. He is experienced on snapping the ball fast with correct rotation. Rarely does a pro holder have to turn the laces away from the kicker because the center knows how to deliver the laces in precisely the right spot. In the NFL, you have a holder that spends lots off time holding because he is available to do that even if he plays another position. One thing for sure, if your holder in the NFL plays another position, he is certainly not a starter. He is a guy that has relatively lots of quality time at every practice to work with the kicking battery. AND, his livelihood depends on how well he handles the ball for the kicker. He is a professional holder. Your high school holder may have only a few holding experiences in his lifetime!
So…what is the point of all this?... In high school there is no need to try to get the ball off faster than the ability of your snapper and holder to get the ball to the right spot and in the right position long enough for your kicker to get a good look at the ball in order to make the kick. Don’t let your head coach put too much pressure on you by insisting that you get the ball off in 1.1 or 1.2 seconds. If you are making contact in less than 1.3 seconds, you are putting too much pressure on the snapper, holder and yourself …for absolutely no reason! And the three of you simply don’t work on the process long enough with professional instruction, to ever make a 1.1 ‘get off’ time a smart choice.
My experience is that in high school, the rush of the fastest kick rusher from wing (the guys you redirect, rather than block), can’t get to a position to block a kick in less than 1.6 seconds. Remember…those rushers aren’t professional athletes either! If you are getting kicks blocked from the middle of the line, in order to fix that problem you have to find guys that can block better. You don’t fix that problem by kicking faster.
Your snapper should be the guy on your team that can deliver a tight spiral accurately to your holder.
Your holder is a guy with good hands that can quickly put the ball on the block every time. (Always use a block in high school. Even if you don’t think you need one you should use it so that your holder knows where to put the ball. Don’t worry about the college scouts. They rarely see their scholarship kickers kick off the ground before they get to the college campus. The scouts are looking for high school stats. They will ask the coach if the kid can kick off the grass.)
Your kicker should be the guy that kicks the ball the straightest and farthest with a get off time of under 1.6 seconds.
Tell your coach to time the wing rush on your team. If he is smart, he’ll realize that he will have a more reliable field goal unit if he allows them to perform within the boundaries of the collective abilities of the high school snapper, holder and kicker.
Allow Yourself To Be Coached
All kickers and punters need a coach…
Do you ever see NFL kickers or punters go into a slump? Of course…it happens. As a specialist the ‘slump-o-meter’ is magnified immensely. A slump for a punter could mean that he is hitting the ball without the spiral he is used to, or that he is hitting a ball with flat trajectory and he is losing hang time. A slump for a kicker could be that he has missed 2 field goals in a row from short distance. Or it could be that his kickoffs are short and low, or high and short for the last two games. It does not take a long time to define a slump for a kicker or punter. That is why it is important to have a coach all the time.
No matter how good you are, if you are a specialist, you need a coach. You need ‘real time’ feedback when you work out. Even the professional kicker can’t tell if his last miss was the result of a short plant, a drop of his right shoulder, or the whip of his inside arm behind his back. A pro punter can’t tell if his loss of hang time is the result of a leading shoulder during the drop, the stretch of his plant step or his posture at impact. A professional coach knows how to look for these things on the field and he knows how to correct these.
Specialists need to allow themselves to be coached. ‘Knowing it all’ is simply not enough …even at the pro level. You have to have someone watching all the time. I have seen several excellent kickers and punters go into a slump that may have taken weeks to develop. Perhaps it was the gradual increase of the distance of the plant step over the course of 4 workouts. At this point, it is hard for the specialist to figure out why he is kicking differently. After all, he feels like he is doing everything the same as he had in the past.
There are some good examples of kickers and punters having a hard time coaching themselves. In this pre-season at the NFL level, I have seen slumping kickers that have the same talent today as they did in the past, but there are some very small things that they probably don’t realize they are doing differently. I am sure that these changes occurred over time. I am just as certain that a good coach would have picked up on the changes early and could have eliminated the slump and consequent loss of confidence. Can you believe that most NFL teams don’t have a specialist coach!
Everyone needs a coach. Your coach needs to balance your physical training and your mental training. You can’t forget either one. You need to have a coach you trust and your coach needs to trust that you will change the things that he suggests you change.
Make sure you have a coach, and allow yourself to be coached…everyday!
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Don’t PUMP…You up!
I have often pointed out to young kickers the value of keeping your head still. You want to develop a smooth approach to the ball when kicking a field goal or extra point. The smoother you are, the greater your foot speed at impact. So here is a very basic tip to smooth you out. Control your inside arm during your approach. There are ‘pumpers’ and there are ‘dancers’. You want to be a dancer if you are a kicker.
For definition purposes…Your inside arm is your right arm if you are right footed and it is your left arm if you are left footed.
You never want to pump your inside arm as you are approaching the ball. It does not matter if you have a jab step included in your approach or you are a pure two step kicker, you never want to pump your inside arm as if you were running as you approach the plant spot. Your inside arm should be brought from in front of your torso at address to a position back, and parallel to the target. …That’s it. Nothing more. Your arm is brought back deliberately and gracefully as you approach the plant spot. When you make contact, your inside arm is directly behind your kicking knee, and it should be straight. And when you bring your kicking foot back to the ground after you have it the ball, your inside arm should come up and it will point exactly down the flight path of the ball.
‘Pumpers’ pump their fist like a sprinter as they approach the plant spot. This forward and back motion pulls the head slightly to one side or both as the pump action is completed at contact. Kickers need to arrest the movement of the head as much as possible. Keep your head quiet. If you are a pumper, become a dancer. There is no reason to pump. Only bad things can happen if you head is bouncing as you pump your fist before you kick.
An easy way to avoid pumping is to make sure that your elbows are in front of your torso slightly at address. Resist the urge to move your inside arm back and forth as you approach the plant spot. Simply move your outside arm forward and your inside arm back as you approach. The ideal position for your inside arm at impact is straight back and directly behind your kicking knee.
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