Jump to content
Y-coach.com - Forum
WillLennon

Thoughts On Screening Not Blocking

Recommended Posts

The boys (8-9 yr olds) on my team have played together for a few years now and are all good friends. They play football together at recess, with me during the seaons and any other chance they get. They are always together playing ball. They love to screen for one another during games. So typically if one of them breaks through the defense, he will have one or two other players running with him the whole way to the end zone. I like it when I see it. It shows me that they understand what I have taught them and that they want to help their teammate score even after they have completed their initial assignment. In i9 rules, blocking is not allowed. As my kids never put their hands or arms out to push, I do not consider what they are doing as blocking. The ref this weekend agreed. However, the coaches on the other team had a real problem with it. What are you thoughts on this?

Thanks

Coach Will

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If the referees are all agreeing that you aren't violating the rules I don't see an issue, if you are concerned about the rules I recommend you reach out to whoever is the commissioner of the league for a rules confirmation. But one of the biggest reasons for coaching flag football is to give kids the skill set and confidence if they decide to move on to tackle football. While you cannot teach "blocking", what you are teaching them translates very well when they move up to tackle (finding someone to block, don't stop until the whistle blows), not to mention the benefits of team work and wanting to help your team mate succeed.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I ref for I9 and the rules state the offense players who are moving can't impede the defense in any way from pulling the flags. If I see an another offensive player running near the ball carrier and there is a defender in the area I throw a flag if the defender has to change their path to the ballcarrier. In our league coaches mostly teach players to stop once the ball crosses the line of scrimmage, which is also what I taught my kids when I coached.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Patandsu,

I know i9 is a national league, but our local i9 rules do not state "the offense players who are moving can't impede the defense in any way from pulling the flags". the only mention of blocking is in the penalty section. There it only mentions blocking as a penalty, no definition. I do not feel like I violated the rules, as there is a not rule in regards to this in our book.

I agree with you MAC, in that "to mention the benefits of team work and wanting to help your team mate succeed". Plus the benefit of preparing them for tackle.

In this particular game, we won easily. 51-6. I was not trying to pile on. Once we were ahead, I was way more conservative on both O and D. That only slowed us down a little bit. I have coached for 9 seasons and 5 of my 8 boys have been with me for several seasons. As this was our first game of the season, we as an experienced team, were way more prepared than the other team (new coaches and new team). On the two or three long runs for TDs, I had boys running with the ball carrier, they do it automatically now. The other coaches were complaining to the ref that they were blocking. The boys were not, they were just running beside them. I believe in part, because they were excited and secondly they wanted to help their teammate score. The ref did not see it as a penalty.

I feel fine with what my boys did. They were not actively blocking, they were supporting their teammates, and not breaking our rules. I am just trying to start a discussion about it, to see what the members of the forum thought.

Thanks

Coach Will

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

WillLennon,

This is a tough one as I can understand where you are coming from in the way you are teaching your players but I still believe you are wrong. Just because it is not called doesn't mean that is should not have been called or that a more veteran officials would not have called it. I believe the intent of a no blocking rule covers having a group of team mates around the ball carrier (screening as you want to call it). The fact that you feel that you are teaching them correctly and for the future doesn't negate this fact.

If I was in your league I would absolutely bring it up with the league commish for a clarification as I think it is important for all of the officials and coaches to be on the same page so that there is not an unfair advantage. If the commish agreed with you then I would begin teach my players to play the same way.

Obviously with the final score of the game the coach can't say that it had a huge impact on the outcome but if it was a one score game I wouldn't want to win doing something that may or may not be legal.

Just my two cents but it doesn't really matter if the league is not going to enforce it or clarify it.

Question for you. Has it ever been called against you and do other teams in your league consistently do it?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hollad,

Thanks for the input. I understand what you are saying. It has never been called against me, but I think at this age (8 & 9) they are just starting to get it. So it has not been something my boys have really done before. It was done against us a few time last year, which is where my boys got the idea. When it happened to me I reviewed the rule book to make sure it was OK. To be honest it is/was not part of what I coached. They boys picked it up in previous games and as it did not violate the rules and they were not malicious about it, I allowed them to continue with it.

Although we are not violating the rules, as written, I do not want to violate the spirit or intent of the rules. I will discuss with the league director about it.

Thanks again for the input.

Will

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I would be curious to what your director says about this. If there is no one near your runner, then its no big deal of course, but if you have teammates running with your ballcarrier where the defense is trying to pull the flag, then I can't see how its not blocking. Also, I coached for 12 seasons and never had a score like 51-6, you must have one heck of a team. If I ever got to 35 it was rare. Have a great season.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Although we are not violating the rules, as written, I do not want to violate the spirit or intent of the rules. I will discuss with the league director about it.

I think this ^ is the ticket, especially in an i9 rec type league. I ran into a few "rules" that we were following but sized up the situation and decided not to go forward with it. One example is going with a no huddle or hurry up offense when we played against weaker teams. I could tell the other team didn't have their act together, so we'd actually wait until the defense was in position. It didn't make sense to take advantage of situations like that even if it was within the "rules" to do so.

Since It sounds like you were up by a pretty large margin throughout this game, I would've chilled when the other coaches started complaining. Even though it probably wouldn't have made a difference, I always wanted to keep my side of the street clean in those situations.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, we just finished up the fourth game and the boys have not been blocking or screening much if at all. Maybe it was just a coincidence on that particular game. I never did talk to the league director, so I do not have any feedback from him to offer.

The season continues to roll along for us. We are 4-0 and the games are not close. We have outscored the opponents by about 170 – 35. I am very fortunate to have 4 really good athletes on the team and only 1 that has very little athletic ability or drive. Everyone else is somewhere inbetween and has flashes of brilliance. Our defense is scoring almost as much as the offense, averaging over 2 pick sixes a game. We play a very discipline zone. I typically play a more conservative second half but it has not changed the outcome of the games. We have a lot of fun and my boys are really good sports.

Just thought I would update, as I started the thread.

Thanks

Coach Will

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My thoughts:

Most leagues will have a rule against screening and more often than not refs will call it. For some reason kids like to trail behind the play. Since it serves no practical purpose and only can result in a penalty you need to strongly discourage it.

Obviously you would want your players trailing the play in tackle football and blocking too but the thing you need to remember is that this is not tackle football. From what I've seen, you're not impeding some kids football development by playing flag football with a different set of rules either. They will adjust to the game fine when they get there.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...

×
×
  • Create New...