Reddit Reddit reviews Football Scouting Methods

We found 9 Reddit comments about Football Scouting Methods. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Football Scouting Methods
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9 Reddit comments about Football Scouting Methods:

u/Jurph · 6 pointsr/nfl

I'm going to recommend a handful of books for you.

  • Take Your Eye Off the Ball, by Pat Kirwan, is about how to watch the game to get the most out of what's going on. It teaches more about tactics (individual player-on-player interactions) than strategy (game plans) although it does get into how to diagnose the offense & defense "looks" to guess run or pass. You're going to see a lot of other recommendations for this book in this thread, and while I love Chris Brown's book (next on my list), if you can buy only one book, it's this one.
  • The Art of Smart Football is a great book about strategy that doesn't get much into tactics. Chris Brown wrote for GRANTLAND when they were still publishing and his writings on the subject between 2005-2012 were some of the most insightful looks at the game back when coaches were still universally afraid to go for it on 4th down. Peter King (SI) and Bill Barnwell both recommend it as a must-read.
  • The Games that Changed the Game is a history book, examining seven historical games and how they've influenced the game as a whole - the framework within which strategy and tactics are considered reasonable. One of the games, just to give an example, is the Super Bowl where Belichick beat the Rams by game-planning to take away Marshall Faulk.
  • Football Scouting Methods is less important to read, and in many ways it has been superseded by Pat Kirwan's book (the first on this list) but it was written by Bill Belichick's father when he was a DC at the Naval Academy. It talks about how to observe an opponent's game and plan to defeat him, and a lot of the commentary still holds up today. It's an interesting historical text, but not really relevant to today's game -- except that everyone who is a head coach today probably read it cover to cover back when they were getting started in the league.

    I'm also going to say that Moneyball is a great sports book and can really contribute to your understanding of how today's analytics-focused front offices are starting to do things differently. So when you see an FO hoarding picks and refusing to overpay for talent in free agency, if you've read Moneyball it will make perfect sense to you.

    Lastly, I'm going to say that most player autobiographies are not worth reading, and "NFL Unplugged", a memoir by a referee, is definitely not worth buying. They're usually full of name-dropping and war stories, which is fun, but they rarely give you any insight into how the game is played.
u/JimboLodisC · 5 pointsr/Patriots

$9.09 on Amazon? Just bought myself a copy.

I'm a keeper, too!

u/copperbacala · 5 pointsr/eagles

I've always watched a lot of CFB and have a particular affinity for defensive players and the defensive side of the ball.


Last year I just kind of went off the games I had watched, combine, rumors and how Mayock felt about guys.



This year I am actually watching these guys snaps on youtube - usually 3-4 games per prospect. I've worked through the defnsive side of the ball over the past month top 7-8 guys at each position. It's pretty hard to see the cb snaps and deep safety play though.

March I am going to be watching a lot of the offensive players. It'll be interesting to see how my opinions on guys will actually pan out in the draft. I am hoping to watch 20-23 minutes of snaps for 4-5 rounds worth of players come draft day.

HAve also been reading Steve Belichik's Scouting Methods

u/3601squirrelnuts · 3 pointsr/CFB

High school coach here. Coaching Team Defense by Fritz Shurmur is considered the "Bible" of defense by many in the coaching profession. This book, along with Bill Walsh's Finding the Winning Edge and Steve Belichick's Football Scouting Methods, are on every list of coaching "canon." I don't know if you're looking for something this technical, but reading Shurmur's book will change the way you watch teams play defense forever.

u/essecks · 2 pointsr/nfl

Smart Football is pretty good for small bite-sized articles on topics- even comes in book form too, though I'm guessing that the book is just a compilation of the blog posts.


Some other books that I liked were mainly ones on Belichick- so War Room was pretty good, easy to read, albeit more about drafting, less technical game-time discussion.



Steve Belichick's Football Scouting Methods is pretty good too, but written in the 50's / 60's and more leaning towards scouting.


Grantland does occasionally have some good articles.


Football Outsiders is also similarly great at smaller analysis articles.

/r/footballstrategy has a few good links, but it's a quiet(er) subreddit and doesn't get much traffic. Some of the articles that I liked from there came from x and o labs.

u/ALeapAtTheWheel · 1 pointr/nfl

Smart Football, and the book. Slightly dated bible on scouting.



If you like stats, read The Hidden Game of Football. Search for Football Outsiders, Advanced NFL stats, Drive-By Football, and Football Study Hall.

u/newmellofox · 1 pointr/nfl
u/glatts · 1 pointr/nfl

First, look on YouTube for basic info. You can find videos about positions and plays and even schemes like the spread pretty easily.

Second, I recommend looking up some film breakdowns. Bill Belichick does them weekly (I think it's weekly) on a local Boston channel, but you can find some of them on YouTube by searching for Belichick Breakdown.

Third, try to find some guides for how to watch football and how to breakdown a game. Articles like this can provide you with a greater understanding of what everyone is doing during a play.

Fourth, do some reading.

I highly recommend Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look to help you while watching the game, but be sure to get the paperback version so you get all the diagrams. It will teach you the progression of the reads, the route running, the blocking and everything that happens on defense as well.

To help you cut through some of the jargon announcers use, I recomment Blood, Sweat and Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook.

If you want to learn more about strategies, try The Essential Smart Football.

To learn more about evaluating players, Football Scouting Methods is a must read. It will take you to the football of another era, but with the foundation from all the other info I've provided you will be able to start putting the pyramid together and learn how the game became what it was today.

u/skepticismissurvival · 1 pointr/nfl

Tim Layden's Blood, Sweat, and Chalk does a fantastic job of marrying scheme innovations with the stories behind them.

Same goes for Chris Brown's The Essential Smart Football and The Art of Smart Football. I really like his writing.

If you're into the college game, Mark Schofield's 17 Drives does a great job recounting pivotal drives from the last season. He does a great job describing the plays and you can basically imagine it playing out in your head.

I've also read Steve Belichick's Football Scouting Methods. It's pretty straightforward and dry but there's a lot of good information in there if you're looking to scout opponents. It's pretty amazing how much of the process from 60 years ago translates to today.