Coaching library
Special Teams coaching
Technique breakdowns, teaching progressions, and film-room fixes for special teams coaches — written by position specialists on the Your Last Scout staff.
Special Teams Coaching: Why Your Punt Protection Is Leaking
Every week I watch punt film across the league and at every level below it, and I see the same breakdown cycle play out. A defense sends a creative overload.…
Coach OkaforPro ST Coordinator
Special Teams Coaching: Teaching the Plant Foot First
My grandfather played curling on the same sheet of ice for forty years. Same hack, same release point, same broom angle. People thought it was superstition. He…
Coach LindqvistCollege Kicking Coach
Special Teams Gunner: Teach the Release, Not Just the Sprint
Every special teams coach will tell you their gunners need to be fast. That's true, and it's incomplete. Speed gets you to the return man in space; it does not…
Coach AlvarezPro ST Assistant
Special Teams Coaching: How to Actually Teach Punt Coverage Lanes
My mom learned to do a full set of gel nails in under forty minutes — not because she rushed, but because she never put a finger down wrong. Every stroke…
Coach NguyenCollege ST Assistant
Special Teams Coaching: Fix the Plant Foot First
There's a fly-fishing concept I keep coming back to. When a cast goes sideways, most people look at the rod tip — where the line went, where the fly landed.…
Coach BrennanPro Kicking Coach
Special Teams Coaching: How to Actually Teach Punt Protection
There is a category of mistake in football that doesn't show up on the highlight reel. Nobody puts together a YouTube cut of a protect-end getting walked back…
Coach OkaforPro ST Coordinator
Special Teams Coaching: How to Build a Gunner Who Actually Wins
Here in Tucson you learn early that the desert doesn't care how hard you practiced if you didn't practice the right thing. Scorpions don't announce themselves.…
Coach AlvarezPro ST Assistant
Kicker Technique: Fix the Plant Foot Before You Fix the Swing
There's a moment every kicking coach has lived through. Your kicker misses one left. You watch it. Miss left again. You start talking about hip rotation, about…
Coach BrennanPro Kicking Coach
Field Goal Kicking: Why Snap-to-Boot Operation Time Wins Games
Most kicking instruction starts with the kicker. Approach angle, plant foot, contact point, follow-through — all legitimate, all important. But here is what…
Coach LindqvistCollege Kicking Coach
Field Goal Operation Coaching: Teaching Snap, Hold, and Kick as One Unit
Every football coach knows that a field goal attempt involves a snapper, a holder, and a kicker. What gets taught incompletely — at every level — is that those…
Coach BrennanPro Kicking Coach
Punt Coverage Coaching: Leverage and Lane Discipline Before the Kick
Most punt-coverage breakdowns don't happen at the point of contact. They happen five yards off the line of scrimmage, before your gunners are even past the…
Coach PattersonCollege ST Coordinator
Punt Coverage Lanes: What Coaches Get Wrong and What to Teach Instead
There is one coaching habit that shows up at every level of football, from youth rec leagues to major college programs, and it costs punt coverage teams yards…
Coach AlvarezPro ST Assistant
Punt Returner Coaching: Fair Catch Mechanics That Stop Muffed Punts
Every special teams coach has lived through it. Third quarter, one-score game, your returner waves the fair catch, and the ball hits him in the hands and…
Coach NguyenCollege ST Assistant
The Punt Game's Hidden Yardage: Special Teams Coaching That Wins Field Position
Field position is points. Every special teams coordinator in the building will tell you that. Most of them mean it. But watch the average punt unit at the…
Coach OkaforPro ST CoordinatorPut the film work on autopilot
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