Best Football Cone Drills

Speed and agility training is one of the most important things for athletes, especially those involved in field sports. It helps improve change of direction, quick feet, acceleration, and deceleration. Today, we will go over some cone drills that are highly beneficial for athletes, starting from a beginner level and progressively advancing to more challenging exercises as the blog goes on. Let’s start off with the first one:

Exercise #1 Quick Feet between Cones:

Get your feet to move as quickly as you can

I have a set of cones spread out, probably about 5 to 10 yards, and each cone is about 2 to 3 yards apart from each other. I’m just really getting my feet to move as quickly as I can as I’m getting myself to go in between the cones. The idea here is to be able to work on how fast my feet can move and then also be able to swivel my hips as I’m doing that as well, therefore improving footwork and agility.

Exercise #2 Agility Drill:

5-10-5 Agility Drill

This is a common drill called “5-10-5”. To perform this drill, place cones at the 5-yard mark, at the 10-yard mark, and at the 5-yard mark again, creating a straight line. Start at the middle cone and run 5 yards to the first cone, then turn and run 10 yards to the far cone, and finally, turn and run 5 yards back to the middle cone. The goal is to reach each cone in a specific number of steps to maximize speed. You should aim to decelerate quickly after reaching each cone, accelerate rapidly after turning, and maintain an efficient stride length. This drill is designed to help improve agility and acceleration.

Exercise #3 NFL L-Drill: 

The L-drill

The drill we’re going to do is called the L drill. You’ll set up two cones, each 5 yards apart. You start by running to the first cone, touching it, then running back. Next, you run to the second cone, go around it, and finish by running back to the starting point.

Exercise #4 Figure 8s:

Figure 8 Drill

Another example is the figure 8 drill. I have cones that are 5 yards apart and I’m going to be running around the cones forming a figure eight. This helps me work on my change of direction and ability to accelerate and decelerate as well as be able to get around the cone in a small spot.

Exercise #5 T Drill:

T Drill

This drill will be another example of the figure eight. I will start by running and making a turn, five yards apart. Then, I’ll open up, turn, run, touch, and come back. Next, I’ll turn the other way, run, touch, go back, and open up. This drill is called a T drill, so I will side shuffle to the side, touch, come back, open up my hips, come back, and touch. You can repeat this exercise multiple times. I usually do four sets of three repetitions, where I’ll go to the side, come back, touch, then go to the other side and touch.

Exercise #6 Crown Drill:

Crown Drill

Continue to alternate between the right and the left side. This is what I’m calling a “crown drill”. It is very similar to a side shuffle. Start by opening up, turning, and running to touch the cone. Then, come back with a backpedal. After that, move to the side, shuffle, open up, touch, and finish through. There’s a wide variety of different movements involved. First, it’s a side shuffle, then it’s opening up, turning to run, stopping, backpedaling, side shuffling, opening up, turning to run again, and then finishing.

Exercise #7 W-Drill Forward: 

W Drill

This one’s going to be a version of The W drill I’ll just call this one like a normal W drill where the cones are about 5 yards apart and they’re shaped kind of like a W just a very big and multiple W stacked on top of each other we’re just getting around the cone and then finish and each cone’s about 5 yards apart this one’s going to be a variation of that where now the cones are only about three yards apart and so now it’s a little bit quicker of a stick you only take a few steps and it’s a little bit more of a stick as opposed getting all the way around so just a little variation this one’s a little bit better for like a receiver this one is going to be wider/longer, this is another good receiver variation so now the cones are 10 yards apart, run, get around, have a little bit more time to be able to speed up here to be able to get around. This is a good drill for again receivers but also this is a really good.

Exercise #8 W-Drill Backward:

W Drill Backward

Drill for like soccer players things like that who have a little bit longer time to be able to accelerate this one’s going to be another variation but this one we’re going to have a back pedal with it so now the cones are at five yards, accelerate, stop backpedal and we’re doing that and the first one I started off with running first and then backpedaling where we could also start with backpedaling and then running.

Exercise #9 L Drill:

L-Drill Version 2

Either one is both the same drill just a little bit different from a start and this is going to be similar to the T drill. So we’re sprinting up decelerate, stop, side, shuffle turn to run speed up or sprint to the line and turn to run again, you could do this similar to the T drill you could just have side shuffle turn to run side shuffle turn to run or you could do the L drill where you just have one side that you’re opening and then you just switch sides.

Exercise #10 Box Drill:

Box Drill

Then you continue to open up to the left this is going to be like a traditional box drill so I’m just going to Sprint up side shuffle back pedal, side shuffle sprint side, shuffle back pedal side shuffle.

Exercise #11 U Drill:

U-Drill

Where we’re going to turn a run so we’re going to sprint up, side shuffle turn, and run get backside shuffle turn, and run get backside shuffle turn.

Exercise #12 Square Cut Cone Drill:

Square Cut Cone Drill

So I’m sprinting each one of these cones are five yards apart cutting off the outside foot, accelerating decelerating, cut off the outside foot, accelerating, working just different steps you’re going to end up cutting off of each leg twice so here I’m cutting off my left, cutting off the right and cutting off.

Exercise B-Drill Version 1:

B-Drill

Right this one is going to be a bit of a variation here you can call it the B-Drill so I’m going to cut I’m going and I’m going to get around this cone. Here I have two cones 5 yards apart this one’s going to be in the middle in between, then get around and then finish right.

Exercise B-Drill Version 2:

I have four cones that are 5 yards apart and then I have one cone that’s in the middle there, and I’m just getting to one cone square, cut, get around, and then finish and I could do this one I’m going through it a couple times so you don’t have to only do it one time you can do multiple.

Exercise #13 Star Drill:

Star Drill

This one’s a star drill so we have a cone, these cones are going to be 5 yards apart, this is going to be 10 yards apart, and this is going to be 10 yards apart. What we’re going to do is we’re going to go and start on one cone, go to the outside of the first cone, and then we’re going to be kind of figure eight around this cone again, figure eight around this cone, and then finish.

I’m getting around the inside part of the cone, and I’m getting around the inside part of the cone, and then I’m finishing. This is a really good drill for basketball, football, any type of field sport.

Exercise #14 Multiple Change of Direction Drill:

Multi-change of Direction Drill

This is going to be the last one here this is probably the most difficult one so we have a cone in the middle, cones are about seven yards apart and five yards apart. Going back five yards so it’s going to be seven cones altogether; three here, each one of these are going to be five yards apart. Each one of these cones 5 yards apart, and then this one is going to be seven yards away from that middle cone, and we’re just going to go and sprint up a touch. This is better to have with a coach, so typically when I have an athlete I’ll just stand here and I’ll just be pointing to the different cones that you want to try to get to and really focus on allowing them to open up the hips; the key thing is we want to be able to get these types of movements.

I have to change direction; open up, touch, change direction, open up, touch, come back. Now I’m going to do the same thing going to the other side; touch, open up, touch, with the right – open up, touch, and then turn and run and then finish. These are variety of ways that you’re kind of challenging your hips to be able to open up again, this is good for football players, soccer players, basketball players.

Conclusion:

Really, any type of field sport across all that type of good stuff just work on Speed and Agility. This could even be a good thing for track and field athletes. If you’re just looking to work on just some change of direction stuff, it’s a great workout. I do think that working on that quick feet right there’s a lot of people that struggle with their acceleration, their ability to be able to get to their top speed well, and a lot of times that has to do with how well you’re able to stabilize and how quick you are essentially with your feet and this is a great way to be able to work on quickness within your feet to make it so you can get off the toes quickly.