Scramble Drill
Setup
The quarterback and wide receivers line up in an offensive formation in order to be prepared to run the routes of a pass play.
Purpose
The purpose of the Scramble Drill is for your quarterbacks and wide receivers to develop the foundation of chemistry and strategic knowledge that is needed when a pass play breaks down and the quarterback begins running around and scrambling in the offensive backfield. Wide receivers need to learn the principles of what they should do when this situation arises in order to work together to put the team in the best possible situation to succeed.
Drill Description
Call an entire pass play from your playbook and have the wide receivers run their routes as normal. After roughly three seconds, the Quarterback begins scrambling either to the right or to the left. The receivers must then identify which direction the quarterback is rolling out to, and proceed to get open for the quarterback.
There are two primary principles that the wide receivers must know when this situation arises. 1) If the receiver is already on the side that the quarterback is rolling out to, then they must find unoccupied space on the near sideline. Spreading out is key to the Scramble Drill so that two receivers are not both in the same place. 2) If the receiver is on the opposite side of the field, then they must jet across the middle of the field and find a hole in the defense where the quarterback may be able to find them.
After the foundational principles of this drill have been developed, you can begin adding defensive players to take this drill up a notch.
