Why Most Practices Miss the Mark

Here’s how to flip your drills and finally build game-night players.

Most player development plans are backwards.

We do drills because we’re supposed to and run them on a schedule.

We fill practice blocks with ladders, bags, cones, and buzzwords.

But when game night hits, our kids panic, miss keys, and can’t finish plays.

I’ve been there. I’ve tried to out-effort bad development. But once we started reverse-engineering our drills from what actually matters on Friday, everything changed.

Let’s talk about how to do that today.

Today you’ll learn:

• Why “good drills” often fail on Friday night

• How to reverse engineer from game outcomes to daily reps

• The 3 essential filters to build game-ready players

If you coach and feel like practice isn’t carrying over, this will help.

Why Most Practice Plans Fail

Most practices are packed with drills that don’t actually build better players.

So often as coaches we default to what we’ve always done. We copy drills we ran when we played.

We fill time and check boxes.

But none of it is rooted in what players actually have to do on Friday.

You’ve seen it:

• RBs running over bags at full speed, not reading anything, not making cuts, just sprinting over foam obstacles like it’s American Ninja Warrior.

• QBs hitting stationary targets with perfect form, but never having to reset their feet, move off a read, or throw under duress.

• WRs running routes vs air, with no idea how to adjust vs. leverage, coverage rotation, or timing.

• OL footwork drills on air with no aiming point.

I’m not saying these drills should never be done. Some fundamentals are worth repping to build a baseline.

But that’s where some coaches stop.

They live in the basics. They run the same surface-level drills.

Same loop of practice all year:

1. Basic drills with no progression

2. Inside run/7 on 7

3. Team

Let’s fix that.

Let’s move to drills that actually translate.