Kick Return Blocking – Special Teams

The other day, I was talking to another youth tackle football coach about how his 4th grade youth football team blocks on kick returns.  We did not do a great job blocking on kick returns last year, and I want to see how other coaches are blocking kick off defenders.   He says he makes sure the kick is not an on-side kick then he has his blockers angle inward, shuffle step backward and then pick up a man nearest him.  The blocker shuffles with his block, mirroring the defender downfield and punch blocking him.  He does not have his kick return blockers “engage” the defender but mirror and punch block the defender while running with the defender.  So he basically has his blockers “get in the way” of the defenders.  He says that his experience has been when the youth football player “engages” the defender, the kick return blockers stop their feet and the defender runs past them.  

I do like the “basketball like” mirror blocking concept.  I am going to experiment with this concept this season, but I will assign my kick return blockers defenders to block.  I think this will especially work well for my front line blockers, since I am now moving to an all skill player kick return team.  For my second line of blockers, I am going to experiement with Coach Cisar’s Trap blocking concepts outlined in his Winning Youth Football A Step by Step book.

Please reply to this post and let me know what you are doing for your kick return blocking. 

Good luck this season.