Tillman: 'I Have Never Made The Perfect Tackle'
(WSCR) Cornerbacks are often the smallest players on the field. And yet, because they play defense, they have to often bring down players much bigger than them.
To do so, coaches try to teach them the "perfect tackle" but Bears cornerback Charles Tillman -- who is in his ninth season in the NFL -- says you won't be able to find tape of him making the perfect tackle.
LISTEN: Charles Tillman with Laurence Holmes
"It's impossible," he told Laurence Holmes on the Miller Lite Top Draft Show Tuesday on 670 The Score. "I don't even know why we practice that, get your head down, put your facemask in between his numbers, no one tackles like that. Ever. Ever. I would get run over every time if I tried to make the perfect tackle.
"The way I tackle? Bring them down by any means necessary which is legal. No horsecollar, no facemask. Other than that, he fair game. I'm going to get him down any way I can, whether it's grabbing him by the neck, grabbing him by the arm, the toe, the shoe, the foot. If I can get him down and it's a clean tackle, it's a tackle."
So is it OK to miss a tackle every once in a while?
"Our theory is: It's OK to miss a tackle, but miss to your leverage side," Tillman said. "All the help is inside. All the defense is inside. So if I'm going to miss, I'm going to miss to the inside to where my defense is."
Tillman added that New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs is the hardest player he's ever had to tackle.
Brandon Jacobs.
