Circle Box Team Defense Concept

I had a very athletic defense with a very low lax IQ.  They understood how to get after the ball carrier, press and stay on their bottom hand.  But they did not understand off-ball team defensive concepts.  Thus I created a few Defensive concepts they could follow regardless if we were in a zone, man to man or even man down.

I figured if they could follow these 3 simple rules we would be great.  

There were exceptions to these rules but I tried to minimize these exceptions in order to minimize confusion.

1. Press the ball. Once your player passes the ball, QUICKLY get at least one foot in the box.

This will ensure that your players are sluffed in, there are times where you may want to deny the adjacent.  

But for the most part especially with new players it is great to keep them packed in off ball.

With my team in particular because they were very athletic, pressuring the ball was not an issue, it was what to do when their player did not have the ball that caused confusion.

2. The defender furthest from the ball should be in the circle that is in the box

- It is a great way to make sure we are sluffed in on the back side ready to provide that second slide.  This will help to prevent "aimless roaming"

3. ALWAYS know who is the first and second slide

I did not get too caught up with the adjacent slide or crease slide.  I just told my guys to always communicate and have the 1st and 2nd ready to go. Following the Box/circle concept, that should be easy to do.

After practicing the concept I knew that even if our team defense was not perfect at least nobody was running through or catching passes in the middle of the field.