Tackling

I watched a lot of football this weekend; NCAA championship games and some key games in the NFL. Plus, my wife is out of town. She’s quite happy to have me watching football, and Formula 1, but…

The Packers/Bears game was classic Packers/Bears. I lived in Milwaukee for some years and was, of course, a Packers fan. But I digress. There were a couple of awesome, textbook tackles in that game yesterday which made the announcers go crazy (largely because such things are so rare). 

I really enjoyed them, because generally I find tackling in both college and pro football today to be appallingly shabby. They seem to think that if you run real fast or dive past a ball carrier he will panic and fall down.

When I was playing football there were four key points made by the coaches who taught me to tackle. Follow theses four points, I was told, and you will seldom miss a tackle and very seldom will anyone be hurt.

1. Head up until and during contact; you cannot hit what you cannot see.
2. Contact must be made with your shoulder pad, never your helmet.
3. The target area is between his knees and shoulders.
4. Feet must never leave the ground before contact.

Violating #4, which is actually rather tempting, is the most embarrassing failure of the bunch. Just as you leave your feet the ball carrier steps nimbly to one side, and you go flying past him and lie on the ground wishing you could disappear into it as he tiptoes happily down the field. I did it once, maybe twice in six years. I see it happen a dozen times in every game these days, and they never seem to learn.