Help me get my boys to fire off the ball

I like to use ball drop drills. If you can get your hands on a couple of larger rubber balls (dodge balls), have your players get in their stance. You stand about 2 yards infront of them with the ball held up high. You then have them fire out when you drop the ball (for defense) or on HUT (or whatever your cadence is). They have to get to and catch the ball before it bounces twice. This will accomplish a couple of things: 1) in order to get there in time, they have to fire out quick. 2) They have to stay low (instead of standing up out of their stance) in order to get to the ball before it hits a second time. 3a) Works on going on the count for offense (go on two or three sometimes), 3b) gets the defensive players to go on a visual cue with their head up.

Our kids love these drills. We do them at least once a week. You can also do them for all of the positions. Get creative with your running backs...we will line up cones for the OL and have them fire out to hit the hole where the play is to go, etc. Same goes for linebackers and D-ends.