Board Drill GPT
Ever since Chat GPT was released, my coaching friends and I have speculated on how AI could revolutionize coaching. Like many others, our initial thought was that AI might assist with breaking down and analyzing film—something it certainly can do, though platforms like Hudl already streamline that workflow efficiently. So, I went back to the drawing board. Over time, Chat GPT evolved and introduced customization options, including the ability to train a GPT on specific topics and upload relevant data. After countless hours and hundreds of PDF uploads, we developed an AI capable of answering football questions in true football lingo.
Is it perfect? No, but it might still be better than some assistant coaches out there. Don’t believe me? Here's a response from our GPT when I asked it to explain block destruction:
Block destruction is a fundamental defensive skill that involves defeating or neutralizing blockers in order to make plays in the run game or get to the quarterback in the pass game. It's a combination of technique, leverage, and physicality. Here's a breakdown of key concepts and methods for teaching effective block destruction:
Key Components of Block Destruction
Leverage:
Pad Level: The lower man wins. Defenders must maintain a low pad level to generate power and gain leverage over the blocker. This helps drive upward and control the blocker.
Hand Placement: Hands should strike inside the shoulders of the offensive lineman to control the chest plate. Grabbing cloth and maintaining inside hands gives the defender the ability to steer the blocker.
Strike and Separate:
Strike: Defensive players must initiate contact with a violent punch, using their hands to shock the blocker and create space. The initial strike should stop the blocker’s momentum and give the defender control.
Extension: After the punch, defenders must extend their arms to keep the blocker at bay, preventing them from engaging with the defender’s body. This allows the defender to maintain vision on the ball carrier.
Separate: Once the blocker is controlled, defenders must separate by disengaging. This can involve shedding the block by ripping through, swimming over, or pushing the blocker away.
Block Recognition:
Key the Blocker: Defenders should learn to read the blocker’s intentions. For example, an offensive lineman who fires off low is usually run blocking, while a lineman who steps back is likely pass setting.
Reacting to the Type of Block:
Down Blocks: Attack the shoulder pad and cross the face of the blocker, squeezing down to prevent cutbacks.
Reach Blocks: Fight pressure with pressure by stepping to the blocker, getting hands inside, and turning their body back inside.
Double Teams: Attack the hip of the post man (the lineman closest to the ball), maintain a low pad level, and try to split the double team by working your way upfield or sideways to avoid being driven back.
Escaping the Block:
Rip Move: As the defender separates, they use a rip motion with their inside arm to turn their body and escape past the blocker. This is effective against reach blocks or when trying to maintain outside leverage.
Swim Move: Over the top of the blocker’s reach, defenders use the swim technique by using an outside arm to swim over the blocker and disengage.
Push-Pull: The defender pulls the blocker forward by using their leverage, causing them to lose balance and momentum, then pushes them aside to create space.
Spin Move: A quick and effective way to disengage when an offensive lineman oversets or is too aggressive.
Block Destruction in Specific Situations
Run Defense: In run defense, block destruction allows defenders to maintain their gap integrity and make plays on the ball carrier. Defenders must be able to shed blocks quickly while maintaining leverage to prevent offensive linemen from sealing or driving them off the ball.
Pass Rush: While pass rushing, block destruction involves quickly beating the offensive lineman’s pass set using speed, power, and hand techniques. The goal is to disengage and close space to the quarterback.
Drills for Block Destruction
Hand Strike Drills:
Use bags or sleds to teach players how to strike with proper hand placement and power. Focus on generating an explosive punch with the hands, aiming for the chest plate of the bag.
Block Recognition Drills:
Set up various types of blocks (reach, down, double team) and have defenders read and react. This drill helps defenders learn to diagnose blocks and apply the right technique to shed them.
Two-on-One Block Defeat:
In this drill, two blockers simulate a double-team, and the defender practices keeping a low pad level while driving into the post man, eventually working to split the blockers or fight off the pressure.
Board Drill:
Line up the defender against an offensive lineman on a narrow board to simulate maintaining leverage and staying square. The defender works on using hands and feet in unison to keep leverage and shed the block.
Coaching Tips for Block Destruction
Low to High: Drill into your players the importance of playing low to high, using their legs and hips to generate power.
Active Hands: Hands should always be working to control and shed blockers. If the hands are dead, the defender is likely getting driven back.
Eyes on the Ball: Teach defenders to use block destruction techniques without losing sight of the ball carrier. After the initial strike and separation, they should always keep their eyes upfield.
By mastering these techniques, defenders can become more effective at defeating blocks, whether it's on the line of scrimmage or at the second level. Effective block destruction allows them to maintain gap control, prevent big plays, and ultimately make more tackles.
While none of this is groundbreaking for a seasoned coach, it could be a game-changer for new coaches. Imagine a platform where you can ask endless questions without the fear of embarrassment, though I’d argue that’s a rite of passage, and have unlimited access to it 24/7.
How it could help your players
But let’s take this a step further: what if we uploaded our entire defensive or offensive scheme, including all the rules, checks, techniques, drills, etc.? Then we'd have a go-to reference for every new coach entering the program—and more importantly, for every new player. Young players would essentially have a coach available 24/7 to answer any questions while watching film or reviewing the playbook. (Let’s imagine for a second that players actually do this!)
Now, a defender could easily ask the GPT, “What’s the empty check when we call Flex Carolina Adjusted?” and get an instant answer. Every adjustment to motion, shifts, and so on can be programmed in to give players or coaches immediate responses, speeding up the learning and teaching process. And with the way AI is evolving, it’s only a matter of time before diagrams are seamlessly integrated. Imagine a world where a player asks a question and immediately gets the answer alongside a detailed diagram.
How it can help coaches
For head coaches and coordinators, Chat GPT can save hours of work. By feeding it documents, you can quickly make changes or search and reference materials that would typically take time to locate. You could create a repository for practice schedules to compare, team presentations, awards, stat tracking, and even writing recruiting emails (which could be automated based on stats). It can also generate 12-month calendars that reference school schedules in seconds.
The possibilities are endless, but it requires some upfront investment. However, trading 4-5 hours one afternoon in the summer for a year’s worth of efficiency seems like a fair deal.
Conclusion
While most coaches are in the thick of the season right now, I don’t recommend diving into this immediately—but it’s definitely worth putting on your radar for the winter. What’s the worst that could happen? You spend some time building a football reference that doesn’t pan out? That’s basically what Glazier Clinics are like these days anyway.
However, I might have a short-term solution for you. If you’re hesitant to invest time building it out without knowing how good it could be, try ours! Below is a link to the Board Drill GPT. While I haven’t uploaded my defense into it yet, I’ve loaded 30+ playbooks and over 50 football articles written by coaches over the years.
Click here to use Coach Bradburn’s Board Drill GPT.
If you have some data (playbook, article, etc) that you’d like us to teach our GPT email us at TheBoardDrillPodcast@gmail.com!