Subject: Do you need a Practice System?
Date: August 11, 2026

Everything in coaching is a System. At least, it should be.

Your playbook isn’t just a playbook. It is a System. Within the system is the playbook - a system unto itself.

Each week you take the pieces of your playbook and build the game plan. The game plan is a system, too.

The entire game week is actually a system for executing your game plan. You don’t have a meeting, then three or four independent practices.

You watch the film to prepare your game plan (we have a system for that, too). Then you prepare the practice plans.

Each practice is part of the system. Moving you closer to the desired result - a victory.

But each practice is a system, too.

In the way I plan practices, every practice has a focus. One desired outcome for each position group. The “system” of practice moves the player from where he is at the start of practice, to where we want him to be at the end of practice.

It starts with the 1-on-1 game. The indy drills to develop skills.

I wrote an entire manifesto on these drills, called “How To Translate Drills To The Field To Win the One-on-One Game When It Counts.” It’s Chapter 7 of my Lost Letters manual (coming soon).

Want to see an example of the thing we focus on to get better? I talk about some of those levers in “3 Linebacker Quick Fixes.” You can get it for free:

Watch the Linebacker Quick Fixes >>

The Indy Drills progress into your group periods. This is were a lot of coaches fall apart.

Too much time on individual drills that only waste time. No focus. Then go to a 7 on 7 of half-line period with no thought process.

Running plays. Killing time.

Defensive Coordinators hand a stack of plays to the guy tasked with running the scout team offense. No instruction except take the guys I don’t want… and run these plays. Make it good.

Now he’s either trying to win practice, or just get through it. There is no purpose.

Instead, we plan drills that attack the focus for practice. The 1-on-1 game.
Then the coordinator scripts 7-play sequences that focus on a specific skill or play. Whatever we worked on in the individual periods carries over.

If the focus is your defensive ends getting better at squeezing down blocks, they work key read drill squeezing a lot of down blocks.

Then we go to a half-line or 9 vs. 9 period and run a heck of a lot of plays with down blocks. Gap scheme plays like Power and Counter.

You need to do that if you want those drills to translate.

Same for the Team period. We have a focus, and the entire practice needs to reflect it. The entire practice is a self-contained system inside a larger system.

Check out the latest episode of The Football Coaching Podcast for more on Group Run Game Drills like half-line and 9 vs. 9 drill to strengthen your practice system:

Listen to the Group Run Drills podcast >>

Coach Simple. Play Fast. Win.

~ Joe Daniel

P.S. I mentioned the Lost Letters. Deep dives on some of the most important lessons you can learn for coaching football. They have not seen the light of day for nearly two years. But they will, soon.
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