Teaching QBs to Watch Film
2 Methods
A big factor in the QB’s development is learning how to watch film. Football is chaos and the film room provides a reprieve where the QB can safely analyze what happened and we can debrief. We try to have the QB watch the film and talk to us rather than us watch the film and talk to the QB.
However, we’ve found this takes some time and at first we were talking a lot more than the QB. But as the QB grows more comfortable with the fundamentals, he can communicate what he’s seeing and why things worked or didn’t much better.
Today, I’m going to go over two methods we’ve used to help teach the QB how to watch film and what we’ve learned from them.
Going Through the Pre-Snap Process
An effective method we’ve used is mimicking the pre-snap process for each play. For each play, we pause at right before the snap and the QB identifies what the play is (since it’s tagged in Hudl), identifies the defensive structure, and then anticipates what is about to happen. He verbalizes all of this before we hit play, and then after we watch the play, we go over his pre-snap process answers to see how accurate they were.
This has helped poke holes in our pre-snap process or in how we were teaching a certain concept. Once we hear the QB give his reasoning for why he anticipated something to happen, we can work backwards to see why he thought that. Additionally, this method is a good exercise for him to get used to the pre-snap process in an unchaotic environment with no pressure.
It should also give him confidence in what he’s seeing before the snap because we spend so much time connecting the dots between what he tells us he saw pre-snap and then what happened post-snap.
Diagnosing What Went Right and What Went Wrong
Another method is having the QB watch the play a few times and then having him tell you why the play worked or why the play didn’t work. Those reasons for why a play worked or didn’t work could be what coverage the defense was in, the footwork he used, the depth or angle of the WR’s route or any defensive pressure we faced.
Once we’ve identified the problem, we can then think about the solution.
This focuses all of us on the essential factors we should be paying attention to. Football is about fundamentals and often, the reason a play worked or didn’t is because of a particular fundamental like our footwork, throwing base, or where are eyes were.
We’ve also found that this helps the QB thinking about solutions to the problems that he is facing. Ultimately, the QB needs to be a problem-solver on the football field. He can’t be scared of problems and things not going right, but instead, have the attitude of “how can we fix this?”
This method is an extension of mimicking the pre-snap process because the QB should be doing that before the play starts and then thinking through why his anticipation was right or wrong.
Conclusion
Allowing the QB to think for himself by analyzing his own pre-snap process and having him figure out why a play worked or didn’t allows him to develop the important skill of self-reflection and self-coaching. Debriefing is important because it allows us to learn from our mistakes, both as coaches and players. Without analyzing what just happened at practice or in a game, it’s hard to know what needs fixing.
Until tomorrow,
Emory Wilhite
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