Football Evaluation Form

Circle one number per row for each player you watch. The level descriptions under the sheet put a picture on each number, so a player who "reads defenses pre-snap" and one who is "confused by motion or shifts" can't both walk away with a 3 for football IQ. At a big tryout each evaluator fills only the rows they watched, and the weighting happens once per player on the compile sheet.

Printing for Six Evaluators and 50 Players

Fifty players and six evaluators would mean 300 single-player forms. Hand each evaluator one roster grid instead. Copy as Table pastes the six rows across the top of a spreadsheet, a line per player, with ten blank lines to extend to 50 and a Notes column for the rep behind a score. Before check-in, number the lines 1 to 50 to match the pinnies.

The PDF in this page's title comes from your browser. Print Form opens the print dialog with only this sheet and its level descriptions, and Save as PDF is one of the destinations it offers.

One Evaluator's Line for One Candidate

Evaluator C held station 3 for all six station rounds, watched the run game in the first position round, and saw both 7-on-7 games in the team period. This is C's line for an invented 12U, #27 from the Gold group, who wrote running back and linebacker on the check-in list.

On the compile sheet, #27's six row averages came to 3.2, 3.7, 3.3, 3.9, 4.0, and 4.6. Weighted for 11-12, that is 37.5 out of 50 and 11th of 50 players, a clear yes for a 26-player roster. The one row with a spread of 2 was football IQ, where team-period scores ran from 2 to 4, all of them from #27's snaps at linebacker. So the staff rostered #27 at running back first and scheduled linebacker reps for the first week of practice before writing either spot on the depth chart.

To evaluate a football player, score six rows on a 1-to-5 scale (football IQ, athleticism, position skills, ball skills, blocking and tackling, and coachability) and watch each player in three settings: drills everyone runs, work at their own position, and a team period. Count what can be counted, time what can be timed, and judge the rest against written levels.

Position is the reason all three settings matter. A defensive tackle candidate looks ordinary in a backpedal drill and may be the strongest player you see in the line area. Score position skills from the spot a player listed first, and use the drills everyone runs to catch the ones who belong somewhere else.

Count Makes Out of Five

USA Football's preseason assessments don't ask a coach how good a throw looked. The Stage 4 assessment sheet(opens in new tab), written for players 11 to 14 with more than two years of game experience, asks how many times out of five a player completes each passing, catching, and kicking task. Leading a moving receiver from 10 yards is one item. Punting more than 20 yards in the air is another.

Borrow that method wherever you can see a clear make or miss. Give five reps, count the clean ones, and let the count be the score. Five makes is a 5, four is a 4, three is a 3, two is a 2, and one or none is a 1. Catches, throws to a target, snaps, kicks, and flag pulls all work this way. Reading a coverage or holding a block doesn't, and that is where the written levels earn their place.

Turn Sprint and Shuttle Times Into a Grade

A sprint time can't sit next to a catching score until it becomes a score itself. Time every player twice in each test and keep the faster time. When the last group has finished, rank the age group from fastest to slowest in each test. The fastest fifth gets a 5, the next fifth a 4, and so on down to 1. Average the two grades and round a half up, and you have the timing grade.

Rank inside one age group only, whatever mix of ages you invite. A 14-year-old's time tells you nothing about a 12-year-old. Run 30 yards for players 11 to 14, the Stage 4 distance, and 20 yards for players 8 to 11, the distance on the Stage 3 assessment sheet(opens in new tab). Both sheets also time a 5-10-5 and a three-cone drill and leave room for three runs of each. The plan further down times two runs of two tests, because that is what fits a 10-minute round.

The timing grade goes on the compile sheet beside the athleticism average, as a check on it. When E and F (the evaluators at stations 5 and 6 in the plan below) both give a player 2s and the timing grade is a 5, check with A, who holds station 1 and saw those runs from the start line.

Keeping those times past one season is where an app helps. In Striveon, once you have set up a timed test such as the 30-yard sprint, you record it for a whole training group in one table. Each result lands on the player's profile with its date, so next August's time has this year's to compare with. Record sprint and shuttle times in Striveon.

Match Contact Drills to the Game Your League Plays

Blocking and tackling can't be scored the same way in every league. USA Football's Football Development Model sorts the game into three levels of contact(opens in new tab).

• Non-Contact. Flag, with no player-to-player engagement.
• Limited Contact. Padded flags or TackleBar harnesses. Players block and engage but stay on their feet, with no purposeful tackling to the ground.
• Contact. Rookie Tackle and Senior Tackle, both full contact.

You can fill the row without live tackling, and the plan on this page has none. Driving a hand shield from a fit position shows pad level and hand placement. Wrapping a second shield with eyes up shows the approach and the fit of a tackle. In a Limited Contact league, score the same row from the engagement and the flag or bar pull, and check your league's own rules before you plan any contact at all.

When a player's 2 in blocking and tackling needs work, our youth tackle football drills build the technique from no-contact form up to controlled live reps.

Plenty of the evaluations you write as a football staff happen after the roster is set. The forms barely change between them. Who holds the pen, and what the number decides, change a lot.

For a youth preseason assessment, USA Football's sheets are worth running as written for the age group, since nearly every item on them is a count or a time. The exception is two motor checks on the Stage 2 sheet, marked easy, with effort, or can't do it. None of the sheets has blocking, tackling, or coverage items, so add the position sheets further down for linemen, linebackers, and defensive backs. For the season review, reuse the six-row tryout sheet so the summer and November numbers share rows.

Paper, a Spreadsheet, or an App?

Paper covers a single day. Collect the roster grids before anyone leaves and compile them that night.

A spreadsheet carries a season if someone owns it. If your staff scores on phones, build each station's row as a Google Form, using a multiple choice grid question with the pinnie numbers as its rows and 1 to 5 as its columns. Responses can go straight to a linked Google Sheet.

Striveon is paid, after a free 14-day trial that needs no credit card to start. What it adds is memory. Each evaluation stays on the player's record with the name of the coach who wrote it, so a camp score and a November score sit in one place. See Striveon's plans.

The tryout sheet picks the roster. The depth chart is a question you answer every week, and six broad rows can't. A sophomore guard and the senior ahead of them can both hold a 3 in position skills for different reasons, one with late hands in pass protection and one with a false step on every pull. Striveon's football preset splits football into 30 sub-skills, scored 1 to 10 by default, and staffs rename, cut, or add sub-skills to fit their playbook.

The Six Areas in Striveon's Football Preset

Line Play holds both sides of the line of scrimmage, run blocking next to pass rush, which suits a staff where one coach takes the offensive and defensive line together. Special Teams gives long snapping, holding, and return technique scores of their own. The tryout sheet folds those into position skills. Game Intelligence & Tactics collects the reads, audibles, and communication you would judge a quarterback or a middle linebacker on.

Checkpoints Before the Depth Chart Changes

Score the sub-skills again at checkpoints like these and each player gets a line per sub-skill across the season, so the guard's pass protection reads 4, then 5, then 7 before anyone moves on the depth chart.

In Striveon those evaluations stay on the player's record from one season into the next, and the app charts each player's progress by skill area and by sub-skill. A depth chart conversation can then start from the player's own line.

Try the Preset on One Player

Before building anything, score one player you know well, starting with the area you coach. The scorer keeps nothing between visits. Its analytics events say when a session begins, completes, or gets exported, and they carry no scores or names. Copy the numbers or download the profile card if you want to keep them.

What a 6 in Pass Protection looks like for a 14-year-old is for your staff to write down. In Striveon that text belongs to the skill area, as a band of the scale plus what a player must show to earn it, and on a laptop or wide tablet it sits beside the roster while each coach scores. On a phone it opens from a button. Write your own rating bands in Striveon.

Young players are learning different things, and USA Football's preseason assessments show how much the test itself should change with age. The Stage 1(opens in new tab) and Stage 2(opens in new tab) sheets time nothing, and every ball skill on all four sheets is counted as makes out of five.

Weights for the Six Rows

The weights below are our own recommendation, built on that progression and applied to the same six rows as the tryout sheet. Every age group's weights add up to 10. On the compile sheet, multiply each row average by its weight and add the six results for a total out of 50.

Green marks a weight of 3. The two middle age groups have none, because their weights stay at 1 and 2.

• 8-10. Speed and effort are what you can judge fairly this young. USA Football's flag and rookie game types rotate players through positions, so position work counts least.
• 11-12. Football IQ and blocking and tackling rise to 2, and athleticism and attitude give up a point each, because assignments and technique start to separate players.
• 13-14. Position skills rise to 2 and ball skills drop to 1 as players settle into one or two spots. The Stage 4 sheet, written for ages 11 to 14, covers this group and the one before it.
• High school. Position skills take 3, because a guard is now judged on guard work. Athleticism drops to 1, since speed shows up inside every position skill by now and the timing card keeps the raw times beside the scores.

A Three-Row Sheet for Big Rec Signups

An 8U evaluation night where one coach places 80 kids on house teams needs less. Three rows give enough separation to balance teams. Fundamentals covers what the full sheet splits into position skills, blocking and tackling, and ball skills, so a rec score and a tryout score can still be read against each other later.

You fill in the position sheet for the spot a player listed first, plus the second spot when the station rotation hinted at it. A linebacker candidate who caught all five at the hands station may deserve a look at tight end. Once the staff agrees where a player fits, a football player profile keeps that player's development in one place, and our guide to football positions lays out what each spot asks for.

Quarterbacks

Footwork comes before the arm. Does the back foot set before the throw, and can the quarterback slide away from a rusher with eyes still downfield? Arm strength decides which throws are possible, and accuracy decides which are completed. The count method fits well here, so throw five to a moving receiver at 10 yards and write down the completions. Decision-making shows up in the 7-on-7. Notice who throws to the open receiver on time.

Running Backs

Vision first. Does the back see the hole open and hit it without slowing down, or dance behind the line? On cuts, look for a plant and burst where weaker backs round the corner. Ball security needs no rubric, because every ball knocked loose in the swipe lane is a note. Score pass catching and blitz pickup while you are there. On passing downs, a missed blitz pickup is what takes a back off the field.

Receivers and Tight Ends

Start at the release. Can a receiver get off the line against press without being pushed off the route? At the break, does the route stay sharp at full speed? Hands show up in the count and again in traffic during the 7-on-7. For tight ends, add the block. A tight end who can seal the edge on a run and still get open up the seam gives a defense two problems. In the tryout plan below, a tight end's blocking shows up at station 3 only, so that score rests on C.

Offensive Line

Linemen show you the most in the first step. Do they come out low with power, or pop straight up and let the defender get under their pads? Hand placement and sustaining the block matter on every rep. Pass protection asks for different footwork than run blocking, so see both in the line area. Have each guard candidate pull at least once, and note whether they arrive at the hole under control or run past it.

Defensive Line

Get-off wins the line of scrimmage. Watch the first two steps for burst and pad level, then the hands. Count how often the player sheds the block and how often they get moved off the spot. Gap control is football IQ for a lineman. Pass-rush moves grow in value as players get older, so you can weigh them lightly in a 12U line game.

Linebackers

Linebackers read a key and fill a gap against the run, then turn and cover in space. Watch the eyes. Do they find the right key and go, or hesitate until the play reaches them? Open-field tackling form matters because they make many of their plays away from the pile. The blitz pickup drill in the run-game area doubles as a look at how a linebacker takes on a back.

Defensive Backs

Coverage starts with the backpedal and the hip turn. Time the turn from pedal to full speed and note any ground given to the receiver. In the one-on-ones, watch them track the ball and play through the catch point. They are often the last defender between a ball carrier and the end zone, so tackling stays on their sheet.

Kickers, Punters, and Long Snappers

Kicking is the easiest place for you to count. The Stage 4 sheet counts placekicks over 15 yards with directional control and punts over 20 yards, each out of five tries. Give specialists their own 20 minutes before or after the main session, outside the 150-minute plan below, five attempts per target, and the makes become the score. Snappers get the same treatment, five snaps to the holder and five to the punter.

Flag football takes blocking and tackling off the sheet entirely. NFL FLAG's rules(opens in new tab) allow no tackling, diving, blocking, or screening, and a play ends when a defender pulls the ball carrier's flag. The rules that replace contact change what a good player looks like, so score against the rulebook your league actually plays.

Flag Pulling and Flag Guarding

On defense, you watch the approach. A good flag puller breaks down, squares up, and takes the flag at the hip, while a poor one lunges at the belt. NFL FLAG describes that breakdown as the same position a player takes to make a tackle, which makes flag pulling an early look at tackling for anyone moving up later.

On offense, a ball carrier who stiff-arms a defender or covers a flag with a hand is flag guarding. It is a penalty, so it goes in the rules knowledge row.

The Quarterback's Seven Seconds

Under NFL FLAG rules the quarterback has 7 seconds from the snap to throw and can't run the ball across the line of scrimmage. At most two designated rushers may come, and only from a rush line 7 yards back. Score throwing on whether the ball comes out on time and on target. For a rusher, watch the first steps from that line and whether the rush ends in a pulled flag or a blocked pass, and read the agility row for anyone you want rushing.

Routes With Nobody Jamming the Receiver

Separation comes from footwork and timing at the break, since no defender can knock a receiver off the line. NFL FLAG plays 5-on-5, and the center can run a route too, so the player you choose to snap also needs hands.

Moving Between the Flag and Tackle Sheets

• Kept in spirit. Football IQ turns into rules knowledge, and attitude turns into sportsmanship.
• Split. Ball skills becomes two rows, throwing and route running.
• Swapped. Blocking and tackling becomes flag pulling, and athleticism becomes agility and speed.

Some 7-on-7 and older leagues allow open-arm blocking, so read your rulebook before you drop the row completely. The flag football practice plan turns what the sheet finds into 45- and 60-minute sessions.

Here is a 2.5-hour tryout you can run for 50 players, six evaluators, two volunteer timers, and one full field. Every evaluator sees every player at least twice, once at their station and once in the player's position area, and nobody goes to the ground. Running tryouts in more than one sport? Our multi-sport tryout evaluation form covers the criteria they share.

Where Each Row's Scores Come From

Each row gets its scores from the evaluators you put in front of it. Each station holder scores their station's row for all 50 players, plus coachability. In the position block, each pair scores position skills for every player in the area, along with any row the area shows. During the team period, evaluators add football IQ and coachability for the players in front of them.

By 2:26 every player has at least one score in every row, three in athleticism, and at least six each in position skills and coachability. A row nobody saw twice, such as blocking and tackling for most receivers, depends on one evaluator. The compile sheet shows that.

Calibrate the Staff Before Tryout Day

You calibrate along the same split. Each station holder brings three written anchors for their row, what a 2, a 3, and a 4 look like at that station, and the staff agrees on them at the last meeting before tryouts. Position skills, coachability, and team-period football IQ come from everyone, so score two players together on those rows. Use last year's film if you have it, or two volunteers running the drills if you don't, and talk through every gap of two points or more. Agree with the timers that the watch starts on the runner's first movement, so two stopwatches give comparable times.

Six Stations on One Field

Lay the stations out before players arrive, each with a numbered cone, so you spend the first round watching instead of moving shields. The timing lane runs 30 yards along the near sideline from the goal line, with the 5-10-5 box beside it. The hands station and the shields share the rest of that end. The install whiteboard and the stance line sit near midfield, and the backpedal station takes the far 20. Each station runs 8 minutes of work, then 2 minutes to move.

Coachability gets scored at all six stations the same way. Give each player one correction during the round, then watch the next rep. For more drills sorted by skill and age group, see our youth football drills.

Position Areas and the Team Period

Quarterbacks throw in the pass area, so receivers and defensive backs face real throws, and line reps stop at the whistle. The head counts below are one example of how 50 players split by first position.

Players who flash in drills and fade once a game starts show it in the team period, and so do the ones who get better after a dropped ball or a lost rep.

The Minute-by-Minute Schedule

The schedule moves 50 players through 150 minutes with 6 evaluators, in six color groups of 9, 9, 8, 8, 8, and 8.

Put the Six Roster Grids on One Page

You compile row by row. For each player, average every score a row received, from whichever evaluators saw it, and write the average in that row's column. Next to the six averages goes the widest spread (highest score minus lowest on any one row) and which row it came from. Multiply the averages by the age weights for the weighted total. Rank by it. Then let the discussion move players.

• Two points apart on one row, such as a 2 and a 4 in position skills, gets settled before the player is given a rank. That threshold is our own. Evaluators in this plan see a player in different drills on purpose, so the highest and the lowest scorer each say what they saw before anyone settles the row.
• A row with a single score has no spread to check. For a bubble player, get that row a second look in the first practice.
• A tie on the weighted total goes to the rows with the highest weight for the age group. If those match too, the higher timing grade takes the spot.

After the Roster Is Set

When you talk to a cut player, pair each low row with the drill where it showed up. A player who hears "station 3, a 2, your pads came up on contact" knows to take the fit-and-drive home for the summer. Striveon's athlete notes keep that kind of feedback on the player's profile.

When the roster is settled, a football roster template organizes it, and the weak rows you found become the first weeks of your football practice plan.