Youth Football Receiver Drills

To become a good football wide receiver, it is important at an early age to practice the fundamentals over and over through football drills customized to improve the specific skills and athleticism needed for football receivers. A few football receiver drills are listed below but you can find many more free football receiver skills & drills videos and tutorials online at websites like Weplay.com.

The two most important fundamentals for a youth football receiver are the ability to get open and the ability to catch the ball. In order to consistently get open, a receiver needs to be quick off the line, run the correct routes, and be able to accelerate explosively after creating space. Once the receiver is open, he must concentrate intensely to catch the ball while being bumped, double covered, and most importantly, about to be tackled. That said, diligently focusing on each part of your route will help you improve and consistently make you a target for the quarterback.

There are a few objectives you want to achieve in each part of a route. The "stem of the route" is when you come off the line. You want to become aware of the type of coverage, man-to-man or zone. In addition, you want to gain position on the defender and start your fakes before you begin your next objective. The second objective is to achieve separation from the defense with fakes, cuts, and acceleration. Finally, you want to break with speed and power to leave your opponents in the dust.

Running fast is not the only prerequisite to being an effective receiver in football. Running with power while changing direction is the key attribute to running effective wide receiver routes. Below are some examples of drills to practice to improve as a football receiver:

Drills for the Youth Football Receiver

• Practice running routes - Place a cone about 10 yards off the line of scrimmage and another approximately 7 yards to the left of that. On the whistle (or simulated snap) run hard to the first cone. When you reach the cone, plant your lead foot down hard, lowering your weight, and "break" to the cone on the left. Concentrate on using full power on your moves, coming off line, planting your leg, and moving to your left. Perform this move on the other side as well to balance out your muscle growth. When you are satisfied with running your routes, you can perform this with your training partner throwing a pass.


• Post-Corner Route – Place a cone about 15 yards off the line of scrimmage and another approximately 10 yards beyond the first at a 120-degree angle. Come off the line with speed and cut to the inside at the first cone towards the second one. You want to be looking straight ahead before you cut. The idea here is to make the corner believe you are running a post pattern. When you reach the second cone, plant your leg and cut hard to the sidelines at a 45-degree angle. Look over your outside shoulder for the ball.

Like all youth football drills, practicing these and other drills help make receiving fundamentals second nature to the youth player, and they can be practiced off the field too, whether in your back yard or out in the park.