At AFCA 2026, Keith Grabowski talks with Richie Gray to explore how contact training, tackling methodology, and innovation have reshaped modern football.
Richie shares lessons from his rugby background, his work with USA Football and the NFL, and his belief that better technique and better tools lead to safer, more effective play. The conversation focuses on accuracy, realism, and solving problems through coaching rather than rule changes.
The discussion also touches on the quarterback sneak and tush push. Richie explains how his insight contributed to the play’s early development and why its success comes from timing, personnel, and repetition rather than gimmickry. He emphasizes that defenses must solve the play through coaching detail and structure instead of relying on rule changes.
Richie Gray is an Elite Performance Skills/Contact Coach who has quite simply changed the way coaches coach, and players train and prepare for the area of contact and collision globally. Although Gray is the founder of GSI Performance, he is also a full-time professional coach in his own right.
What separates Gray from the rest, is his unique position of being involved in the following three key areas:
-Elite Performance Coaching
-Technical Training Equipment
-Contact & Coliision Coaching Methodology
Chapters:
• How rugby principles influenced modern football tackling
• The evolution of the Five Fights tackling system
• Why simplicity drives better teaching and execution
• Designing tackling equipment that creates realistic contact
• Why many common training tools fail to improve accuracy
• Early influences behind the quarterback sneak and tush push
• Personnel and coaching details that make short-yardage plays work
• How defenses should approach solving new offensive trends
• Improving late-game lateral and pitch situations
• Measuring coaching success by long-term player health
Learn more about Smart Clinics at https://coachandcoordinator.com/.
Richie Gray – GSI Performance Website
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