This week, we had the opportunity to talk to Craig Bailey, aka Coach Vick, who works with AO Sports & Fitness, a sports performance and athletic development program which specializes in training and developing athletes at each level. He gave us some insight on how to be a great wide receiver, including the drills to best improve your coordination and agility!
You wanna be able to run, create space between you and the defender. You also wanna have strong hands. If you can’t catch, your coach is gonna turn you into a DB quickly. You wanna build chemistry with your quarterback, that’s very important. Being able to get up the field after the catch is also important. The biggest one in my mind would be blocking. Coaches will keep you in the field and will run more plays to your side if they trust you are a great blocker. Staying on the field means more opportunities to catch down the road. If you can catch, you can catch, but if you’re a great blocker, you’re gonna be on the field. That’s the biggest thing on my mind.
Well, we always put our athletes through the catch circuit, whether they are on offense or defense. You gotta be able to place your hands correctly when the ball is coming. So we always put the kids in the catch circuit at the beginning of practice. Something quick. Little warm up. You can do hand flips, that works. The hand and speed reaction, the tennis ball and wall bounce. You just have to have somebody behind you throw the tennis ball up and it bounces off the wall and you react and grab it. That works on hand-eye coordination. Then the distraction drill also helps. Have somebody stand in front of you while you’re trying to catch the ball, then they swipe their hands in front. Obviously not to bat down the ball, but as if the defender was to put his hands in your face.
Improving your lower body strength will increase our speed and agility. We put our kids through box jumps that build power and strengthen your lower body. Other ones would be the T drill, 4 cone stick drill, those are all good for receivers. Working on the break resistances, whether that be parachute or bungee cords or pulling the sandbag, we put our kids through all of those.
The world's greatest stretch, that loosens up the lower body and works the hamstrings. I mean that. Personal trainers use it, athletes use it, that’s why it's called the world's greatest stretch! The duck walk, that’s a good exercise to improve the receiver’s instep, knees and hips which helps increase flexibility. Especially when you’re breaking, going super fast and within a couple of seconds, putting your foot in the dirt and heading down the sideline, that duck walk helps with those kind of routes. Stance and starts those help receivers create good habits and fire off the ball. No false steps are wasted movements.
You have to have a short memory. Drops happen, you’re only human. You have three seconds to be mad at yourself and get back to work again. Don’t beat yourself up about the last play. More drops will follow if you think about those because that’s all that will be on your mind. I would also say be physical, DB’s will try to dominate you at the line if they think you’re soft. So definitely set your presence first. Play the game. Learn your coverages. Typically, the best wide receiver has a defensive mind. You wanna know what the defenses are lining up in and that way you know what route to run or how far to take it. Be confident. This came up before, but build chemistry with your quarterback. You’ll get more targets if you build rapport, I trust you and you can trust them.
