The Evolution of Tackling

Because we’ve always done it that way.

A powerful phrase.

There is comfort in it. Safety in numbers.

Ultimately, however, not a very good reason for doing anything.

Teaching the Skill

Tackling is perhaps the most fundamental, universal component in the sport of Canadian football.

Yet over my time as a player and a coach, the way I’ve talked about tackling has drastically changed.

They way I see it, these changes have all stemmed from one crucial component:

The placement of the head during a tackle.

Now, back in my day…

I’m pushing 40. Younger than some, older than others.

As a player, I was taught to get my head ACROSS THE BODY when making a tackle.

This was best practice at the time.

Angle tackling drills were the norm (often at HIGH tempo, with big collisions), and this was the prevailing coaching point.

When I became a coach, this was how I taught it as well.

It made sense to me, and it fit with all the other coaching points surrounding the tackle.

It was how we’d always done it.

The Shift

At some point, things started to shift.

I can’t speak about the science of concussions, or the medical history surrounding the topic.

I’ll leave that to people much smarter than myself.  

I can only talk about my personal perspective as a coach:

It seemed as though something was wrong with our game.

People were moving away from our sport, not towards it.

Something needed to change.

And this shift needed to involve all stakeholders. Rules were changed, players adapted their styles to make things safer.

But what about coaches? How could we help protect our sport?

Well, for one thing, we could change the way we taught tackling.

It must be noted there are other ways the coaching community has been working to make the game safer, especially around the ways we practice. But one topic at a time…

A Slow Burn

For me, it didn’t happen all at once.

And full credit to Gary Waterman, our Head Coach here at STFX University, for guiding me through this process.

You see, I’m old school (aka stubborn).

A shift like this wasn’t easy for me, for several reasons.

First of all, it required a re-learning of all my coaching points around tackling. New drills would be needed, new coaching cues. 

Most importantly, perhaps, it required an unspoken acknowledgement.

An acknowledgement that all those coaching points – the techniques I barked for all those years while young athletes progressed through my drills – maybe there was something wrong with them? Maybe there was a better way we could have been doing things all along?

Not an easy pill to swallow.

A New Way

At its core, the shift was this:

Instead of having a tackler work to get their head ACROSS THE BODY of a ball carrier, they should instead keep their head off the NEAR HIP of the ball carrier.

If done properly, this should create less of a blow to the head while making a tackle. This, in theory, should reduce the number of concussions incurred by our players.

I was skeptical.

Will this cause us to miss a lot of tackles? It’s not how I was taught. Will it work? What if it doesn’t?

Eventually, I accepted the change.

And I haven’t looked back.

Unintended Consequences

This was years ago.

Since that time we’ve worked on adapting our drills, techniques and systems to match this one singular coaching point.

And I’ll share one unintended consequence here, especially for those who haven’t yet made the switch:

In my opinion, not only is this technique safer for our players, but it’s a BETTER WAY TO TACKLE.

Again, changing one single coaching point isn’t enough to ensure success. But now that we’ve adapted our style to MATCH this coaching point, it’s absolutely superior.

Getting the head across the body, for one thing, opens up the ability for the ball carrier to execute a CUTBACK. This could result in a missed tackle.

The NEAR HIP tackle, on the other hand, allows a pursuit angle that eliminates this issue.

I’ve had the great fortune of working with several outstanding Canadian football coaches over the years, as both a player and a coach.

The fact that we all coached things a certain way for so long is not to detract from the coaching community. Nor did I go from being a “bad coach” to a “good coach” as soon as I made this shift.

But real coaches spend every day trying to get better.

If we’re not committed to self-improvement, then how can we ask our players to be?

The way we teach tackling is just one example of this.

Moving Forward

My personal relationship with tackling technique has led me to this place.

But it’s a continuous journey of improvement.

And when the next innovation comes along that helps us move the needle a little further in the direction of player safety, I hope I’m a little quicker to adapt.

All the best,

Jon Svec
Defensive Coordinator
St. Francis Xavier University
X-Men Football
IG: @jonsvecx
Twitter: @jonsvecx

Jon Svec is the author of the e-book Canadian Football Chalk Talk: Defensive Basics.