FirstDown PlayBook Is Better (& Easier) Than Visio
There is an old old saying that goes “Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention”. It is very true and it is exactly why FirstDown PlayBook was created 14 years ago. To be completely blunt, I was tired of using play drawing tools that were not designed to draw football plays. There were several inefficient tools but at the top of the list was Microsoft Visio.
In all fairness to Microsoft, Visio is not designed to be a football play drawing tool. It is basically an engineering design tool. Somehow, somewhere, someone in an NFL coaching office started using it to draw football play diagrams and the coaching world was altered.
How do I know all of this? Because I was part of it. When you get the opportunity to coach in the NFL you take it. You don’t ask questions. You take the job and get your butt to work as quickly as you can before someone else beats you to it. That is exactly what I did.
One of the first things I was introduced to was Microsoft Visio. I was told start drawing our mini-camp and OTA installations. As I began to work I realized that this tool had nothing to do with football. It was just a tool that someone before me had used.
I remember on my first day looking for the blocking symbol. After all, I was drawing a run play for the Chicago Bears. Surely they had provided me with a football drawing tool that made it easy to draw blocking, right? Not so fast my friend.
Click On This Play Drawing To See How Easy FirstDown PlayBook Is & How Much Time It Can Save You.
I quickly learned that I had to first go in and create any block I needed and then begin making stencils. In other words, I had to re-design Microsoft Visio into a football play drawing tool before I could actually begin to draw our football playbook.
Well as all good young coaches do, I persevered and got it done. However; I knew early on in my NFL coaching career that if I ever had the chance, I would develop a tool like Microsoft Viso for football coaches.
The Folks Over At Microsoft Will Tell You That Visio Was Never Designed For Football
After a 30 year college and NFL coaching career FirstDown PlayBook was born. FirstDown PlayBook was not created to be like Microsoft Visio. It was created because of how ill equipped Microsoft Visio was as a football playbook tool.
This is why we roll our eyes when some actually promote the fact that you “can” use Microsoft Visio with their playbook drawing system. This is code for, if you draw with Visio you can get in the NFL. Wrong. If you draw with Microsoft Visio you are going to spend needless hours instead of coaching football. I know because I did it.
Fourteen years later this is one of the main reasons that FirstDown PlayBook has continued to grow as the best football playbook drawing tool available to football coaches. This means any football coaches and I am talking about from the NFL to your local Pop Warner league.
We prove this every single day as we offer free trials for all coaches and free one week trials for high school, college and NFL coaches. So don’t take my word for it. Take a free trial here and see for yourself. See how FirstDown PlayBook gives you everything that Microsoft Visio does and much more for a football coach.
