How to improve your football skills as a Defensive Lineman

by Martin Chase

My name is Cecil "Martin" Chase and I played as a Defensive Tackle in the NFL for eight years. In this article I am going to provide you with techniques you can use to master your skills as a defensive lineman.

There are four core qualities that a defense linemen needs to posses. These qualities are strength, speed, intelligence, and a fiercely competitive nature. If you do not have these qualities, you need to practice them over and over until you master them. By mastering them, you will be attractive to college football scouts as well as NFL scouts.

Here are the reasons why you need to master the qualities of strength, speed, intelligence and a highly competitive nature:

1. You need strength to move past the opponents that are in front of you and who are trying to keep you from tackle the quarterback or running back.

2. You need speed to pursue and rush the quarterback and running back.

3. You need intelligence to react to different events that are happening all around you and you need to respond to them in a split second. If you hesitate, you’ll get burned.

4. Most important of all, you absolutely must have a fiercely competitive mindset. You must believe you are the best and no other player can stop you. A defensive lineman has to be a fighter and he needs to love competing against the man in front of him. He must take pride in physically defeating his opponents. He must understand that winning these battles is vital to helping his team win games.

A good defensive lineman must also be completely unselfish and willing to sacrifice his own body to help his teammates make plays. The defensive lineman also needs to be highly self-motivated. Defensive lineman rarely receive recognition for the key job they perform. Therefore, they must be able to motivate themselves to compete as the highest level possible. A truly great defensive lineman understands the importance of his role on the field and he must always play with pride and dedication.

By making these qualities your own, you will be well on your way to becoming an elite defensive lineman.

****************

Martin Chase is a retired NFL player who has played with the Giants, the Saints, the Redskins, the Ravens, and the Jaguars. Martin now owns and manages a popular
sports memorabilia website - http://www.mcsportsfan.com.

How to become an NFL Player, Part 3
by Martin Chase

In my first two articles on how to become an NFL player, I discussed the work you need to do to in the class room, the community, and how to take care of your body to increase your odds of becoming an NFL player.

In this article I am going to discuss the specific football drill skills you need to develop to make you look attractive to college football scouts. For maximum results, I recommend that you work on these drills with a strength coach or a professional trainer.

Here are the drills you need to master:

* Vertical Jump - designed to test leg strength and lower-body explosiveness.

* Broad Jump - designed to show sluggishness, heavy-leggedness and lack of explosiveness.

* 225-lb. Bench Press - designed to test the upper-body strength of a player.

* 40-Yard Dash - times show how explosive a player is off the line and how he maintains it.

* 20-Yard Dash - times show how explosive a player is off the line and how he maintains it.

* 10-Yard Dash - times show how explosive a player is off the line.

* 20-Yard Shuttle - designed to test explosiveness, how a player bends and changes direction, and body control.

* 60-Yard Shuttle - designed to test explosiveness, flexibility, and body control; and a subtle test of endurance.

* 3-Cone Drill - designed to test a player's efficiency in changing direction moving left and right, explosiveness, balance, body control and mobility.

The most important skills to master are the 40-yard dash and the 3-Cone drill. The reason these two drills are so important is they help football coaches determine what positions you are best suited to play.

You should know that the speed players are completing these drills has been improving every year. This is because more and more high school and college players are working with professional sports trainers to help them maximize their performance.

Below I have listed the minimum times you need to have by position if you want to impress college football scouts. One thing to keep in mind for these tests is the size of the player. Smaller players should have an advantage over their bigger counterparts in regard to speed. If you are a big player, it says a lot about your athletic ability if you perform well in these drills.

40-Yard Dash:

QB: 4.7 seconds or faster
RB: 4.5 seconds or faster
WR: 4.4 seconds or faster
FB/TE: 4.7 seconds or faster
OL: 5.2 seconds or faster
DT: 5.1 seconds or faster
4-3 DE and 3-4 OLB: 4.8 seconds or faster
4-3 OLB: 4.7 seconds or faster
ILB: 4.7 seconds or faster
S: 4.5 seconds or faster
CB: 4.5 seconds or faster

3-Cone Drill:

QB: 7.1 seconds or faster
RB: 7.1 seconds or faster
WR: 7.0 seconds or faster
FB/TE: 7.2 seconds or faster
OL: 7.8 seconds or faster
DT: 7.7 seconds or faster
4-3 DE and 3-4 OLB: 7.2 seconds or faster
4-3 OLB: 7.1 seconds or faster
ILB: 7.2 seconds or faster
S: 7.1 seconds or faster
CB: 7.0 seconds or faster

In summary, to become a professional football player, you must master the skills colleges and NFL teams use to measure the quality of an athlete. If you want to make it to the NFL, you should work with a professional sports trainer to help you maximize your performance so you can achieve and exceed the drill speed times discussed above. Other athletes are doing this and for you to compete with them, you need to do it too.

************************

Martin Chase is a retired NFL player who has played with the Giants, the Saints, the Redskins, the Ravens, and the Jaguars. Martin now owns and manages a popular
sports memorabilia website - http://www.mcsportsfan.com.

How to become an NFL Player Part II
by Martin Chase

In part one of my series discussing how to become an NFL player, I discussed how you need to work hard in school to get good grades and strengthen your mind. In this article I am going to discuss the things you need to do to strengthen your body so you can compete at the professional level.

Think of your body as a vehicle. If you have a vehicle and you do not take care of it, it will break down and be useless. It is the same with your body. For your body to become the vehicle you use to play professional sports, you must take very good care of it. And, you must start taking care of your body immediately. The longer you wait, the harder it will be for you to build the type of body you need to compete in professional sports, particularly in the NFL.

I was lucky and the idea to take care of my body came at a young age – when I was just entering high school as a freshman. To build my body strength and stamina, I began weightlifting, eating healthy food, and drinking a ton of water. Doing that was one of the keys to my success as an athlete in high school, college, and the NFL.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, “Why can’t I just take dietary supplements and sports drugs to build up my body?” The answer to this question is that dietary supplements in fact can help you, but you absolutely must stay away from drugs and steroids. They will destroy your body and you need to stay away from them at all costs, even if other players are pressuring you to take drugs or steroids. Don’t do it.

You also need to stay away from recreational drugs, smoking cigarettes, drinking a lot of alcohol and eating junk food. All of these things will hurt your body and kill your chances of making it to the NFL. To be the best of the best, you must build the best body you can, and you must do everything you can to protect it from harm.

In regard to your health, the first thing you must do is get your parents or an adult to help you with your decision to build your body and eat healthy. Once you do that, you need to see a doctor and get information on your physical condition and if you are healthy enough to take dietary supplements. You also need to make sure you are not allergic to any type of dietary supplements.

The second thing you need to do is see a sports nutritionist to help you plan your diet and help you develop correct eating habits for becoming a top athlete. Again, I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to eat healthy and drink a lot of water.

The third thing you need to do is to talk to your team coach and ask about what types of physical training you can do to become a faster and stronger athlete. If you do not have a coach, you should meet with a sports training coach at your local gym and discuss the things you need to do to strengthen your body to become a top athlete. Remember, it is not the job of your coach to make you improve your body. That is your job only and you must take full responsibility for turning your body into that of a professional athlete. Nobody will do it for you.

By following these steps, you will put yourself ahead of the competition and you will build your body into that of a professional athlete.

***********

Martin Chase is a retired NFL player who has played with the Giants, the Saints, the Redskins, the Ravens, and the Jaguars. Martin now owns and manages a popular
sports memorabilia website - http://www.mcsportsfan.com.

Becoming an NFL player, Part 1, by Martin Chase

Becoming an NFL player was my dream since I was in junior high school, and I was one of the lucky few who actually made it all the way to the NFL. I have played for the New York Giants, the New Orleans Saints, the Washington Redskins, the Baltimore Ravens, and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

My life in the NFL was a remarkable experience. However, getting to the NFL was very difficult. In this article I want to discuss a few of the mental hurdles a young athlete will go through if they want to make it all the way to the NFL.

My preparation for the NFL began in high school when I realized that I had a chance to play Division One football. I attended an outstanding high school program at Eisenhower High School in Lawton, OK where I played against a rival school (Lawton High School) that has produced NFL talent including Michael Minter of the Carolina Panthers, Will Shields of the Kansas City Chiefs, Daly Gardner of the Miami Dolphins, James Trapp of the Oakland Raiders, and Jamal Brown of the New Orleans Saints.

Playing against the top athletes in high school really helped to raise my game to be the best it could be. As an athlete, your preparation for the pros starts when you decide you want to be the best athlete you can be for you—not for your parents, not for your girlfriend, and not for your friends. To be an NFL player you must have a burning desire to play with the best and you must do everything you can physically and mentally to make yourself able to compete with the best.

But being a great athlete is only half of what it takes to make it to the pros. Developing your mental skills is just as important as developing your physical skills.

First, you cannot play football if you have bad grades. The real work for becoming an NFL player starts in the classroom. For me, the class room was difficult and I had to work very hard to keep my grades up. But I understood that if my grades were bad, I would be kicked off the high school team. And, if I was kicked off the high school team, I would not be able to play college football, and college football is a requirement for becoming a pro player. Because of that, I worked very hard to keep my grades up.

If you want to become an NFL player, you must take your class work seriously to give yourself an opportunity to play college football. Here is a secret most student athletes don’t know. Colleges love smart athletes. By being both a great student and a great athlete, you greatly increase your chances of being recruited by a scout for a major college football team. Why you ask? Smart players make smart decisions on the football field and help win games. If you look at many of the greatest NFL players, many of them are not the best athletes. What they are, are the smartest athletes. When you play in the pros, the plays are very complex and you need to think very quickly. That is why it is so important to build your brain power just as much as your athletic skills. Accomplishing this is one of the first big steps towards becoming a pro player.

Another important part of being a pro player is how you present yourself as a person. Do you get along well with your fellow athletes and coaches? Are you a good member of your community? College and pro teams want cooperative team members, not spoiled athletes that cause problems, get into trouble, and are an embarrassment to the organization. An athlete that causes problems with his team members and gets into trouble with the law hurts a team. Problem players are quickly removed from competitive sports teams. Therefore, if you want to make it to the NFL, keep yourself out of trouble and be a model person.

In conclusion, being a great athlete is not enough to make it to the pros. You must work hard both on and off the field. Be a person that your team can count on and be proud of. If you do this, you will increase your chances of being recruited by a college scout and making it to the pros.

*************
Martin Chase is a retired NFL player who has played with the Giants, the Saints, the Redskins, the Ravens, and the Jaguars. Martin now owns and manages a popular
sports memorabilia website - http://www.mcsportsfan.com.