In the Fall we signed on Brett Makar as one of our FCL Athletes. Brett is a rare 5-year starter at the University of Maryland as well as multiple time All-American and an excellent leader.
I had the chance to spend some time with Brett this Fall and pick his brain on a number of things. One segment we did called our "Players Perspective" we went Behind the Cage with Brett and had him break down his approach to covering the ball from X. I found this segment extremely fascinating and think every defender will appreciate the detail and approach Brett takes to the defensive position.
The full video is posted below on our YouTube channel (about 20 min), but here are few quick summarizing points on some of the takeaways:
When possible, use film to study your match-up. Understanding this isn't always possible at younger levels, it is increasingly common to get film of opponents as players advance. If you have film of an opponent, utilize to understand their tendencies and strengths. This is a huge advantage to a defender that learns how to utilize this. (Note: if you do not have film, you can pick up on a lot of tendencies after a few possessions, like strong hand and go-to moves -- use these to your advantage).
It starts with the Approach. Approaching the ball appropriately sets us up for success to win the match-up. Brett illustrates how he shades the strong hand shoulder and uses his stick to set a gap to keep cushion behind the cage.
Be patient on contact -- use your feet and stick to keep cushion by matching speed. Dodgers will attack us at different speeds and in different ways. Some guys are extremely fast straight-line dodgers, some have great change of direction, some are strong bull dodgers, etc. We want to be able to use our feet and stick to keep a cushion and match the dodgers speed. There is no need for us to make contact 10 yards below GLE -- this opens up a chance for dodger's to turn us early and get past us.
Plant and drive, don't "swing". As we are being patient and keeping our cushion, the dodger will eventually make a move to get past us. When this move is made, we will have to react to close the gap. When we react, we want to plant and drive out of our retreat steps off of the appropriate foot. For example, if I need to break right, I want to plant and drive off of my left foot to cover ground in that direction and not just swing my body open (Brett explains it better in the video).
Let the contact come to you. If we have good patience behind the cage and play the correct angles, we should be in the path the dodger needs to take to a dangerous area. So rather than go reaching for early contact, we can be patient and let the contact come to us. Think about how an offensive tackle absorbs contact while pass blocking. Here is a quick breakdown of Chris Fake absorbing contact vs Joey Spallina.
Brett breaks down more keys to covering behind the cage in our Players Perspective video, and he does a better job explaining than I do here so be sure to check out the full thing!
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