Every year a bunch of my players will participate in a spring flag football league. This is excellent because it will allow my players to stay active and busy during the off-season. Flag football will allow my players to play football, rather than play another sport. The kids will be running, blocking, throwing and catching.  Playing flag football in the spring will allow my players to develop muscles they will be using when the fall contact football league starts.  We contact all our players and suggest

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joining a flag football team with their other teammates. Having all the kids playing together in the spring will help develop team chemistry. One of my assistant coaches actually coaches the spring flag league so he is able to install some of our passing routes, techniques and plays.

Spring Walk Through

In the off-season we will try to meet once a week to practice throwing and running through our plays. These spring walk through sessions will be mostly with skilled players. We will work on our plays, motion timing and passing route combinations. We will also work on some blocking responsibilities and techniques. We will rep our base plays over and over again. We want to use these sessions to develop fluency with all our base plays. We will also use the spring walk through to give backup players reps. I will try to get all our projected QBs to the sessions so they all can split reps and develop fluency with the plays. Since we will need multiple backups for each position we will work different kids in at each position.

Getting together with your team will allow you to evaluate any new players. You can make the kids run some pass patterns to see their coordination (catching the football) and their athletic ability. We will put the kids through light drills that will test their physical and mental ability. We will adjust or add some plays to our offense based on our players athletic ability.  If you are able to get some of your players out practicing early in the spring it will save a lot of time in practice come August.

It is vital that your players stay busy during the off-season. Push their parents to put them in other sports, or to join a flag football league.  If you could get some kids together a couple Saturdays during the spring to practice plays it will benefit your team come fall.