Football is chaos.
There are 22 teenage boys running around the field in a coordinated, yet chaotic interpretation of the strategy put forth by the coach.
And asking your QB to decipher through all of it is one of the biggest challenges all coaches face. One of the most common ways coaches ask the QB to work through the chaos is by using a pre-snap process. The issue with using a word like "process" is that it sounds too much like a checklist. The most relevant definition from our dear friends at Merriam-Webster state the definition of process below.
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Process (n): a series of actions or operations conducing to an end.
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Okay, so it's not a checklist per se, but a "something" that happens and then stops. But the pre-snap process really doesn't stop -- it just flows into the play post-snap.
If all defenses were sitting still pre-snap and post-snap, then maybe we could get away with this definition. I say this because the process can't stop at the end of the play. How could we give a process to a player that he could follow through for the entire play?
Or, is that what "reads" or "progressions" are? Are they simply extensions of the pre-snap process?
I don't want to over-intellectualize the problem here. But I do want to question the word process. I don't think of the QB's situation as something a process will fix. His situation is too reactionary to be a pre-determined process. The QB needs to have instinctive reactions to what he sees. But those reactions have to be taught and/or refined.
I've just started reading the book Headset to Helmet by Dub Maddox and it starts to tackle some of these questions I've had. I'm excited to get through it and see where he ends up.
Let me know if you use a process. We use a really simple one that I'll go over in more detail in tomorrow's email.
I've also briefly wrote about it in these two posts:
Part 1:
https://emorywilhite.substack.com/p/learning-to-teach-the-pre-snap-process
Part 2:
https://emorywilhite.substack.com/p/evolution-of-the-pre-snap-process
Emory Wilhite