Pete Carroll, Head Coach of the Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks, released a video on the team's website this week that has caused quite a stir among the rugby community.

In the video, Carroll maps out exactly how he and his coaches teach tackling, and how they use their tackling techniques to be effective, while taking the head out of the contact area. In the video, Carroll repeatedly mentions rugby as an inspiration for some of these techniques, and shows rugby, as well as football, video footage to show what he means. While his instructions don't always translate to rugby (tracking the near hip is nice, but easier in a game where the ballcarrier isn't expected to pass the ball), much of it does, and explains and illustrates how to play good defense in a contact sport.

Carroll is known to be a rugby fan and joins another high-profile Seattle-area coach, newly-hired University of Washington Head Coach Chris Peterson, in recognizing that football, even at the highest levels, has something to learn from rugby.

See the video here:
http://www.seahawks.com/videos-photos/videos/Seahawks-Tackling/af5b80dd-...