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Nobody's a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It's hard to stay on top. Paul Coffey

Recently I spent the afternoon at the Chicago Bears training camp.  Besides seeing sixty large sweaty men beat up on one another, I also had a good reminder of a coaching fundamental.  Every drill had a specific purpose and nothing that didn't contribute to that purpose was allowed.

The Bears were practicing a swing pass, actually they were practicing the blocking scheme on the edge.  The running back lined up in the backfield, the guards lined up on the line and the linebackers lined up on the defensive side.  When the play started, everyone ran to their position, but instead of having a QB throw the pass, a coach was kneeling near the spot the running back would make the catch.  The coach tossed the ball to the running back who turned up the field with the ball following his blockers.

A quarterback could easily make the swing pass.  Even if it isn't a QB on the roster, any coach could make that toss easily enough.  But the pass wasn't the focus of the drill.  The focus was getting to the right spot and making the correct read.  Even if only a couple of passes were dropped, that is time not spent learning what the coach wanted from that drill.

When you are putting together your practice remember the drills don't have to look exactly like the game.  You can — and should — make changes that allow you to focus on the important pieces.  I'm sure on another day the Bears had the QB's and RB's doing nothing but running the swing pass for 30 minutes.  But the guards and linebackers were off doing something else.  Determine exactly what you want to accomplish with each drill and ruthlessly remove anything that doesn't contribute.