Selecting and sequencing instructional tasks to facilitate student learning (i.e. content development) is an important skill for physical education teachers. Research has shown that teachers often have little content development following an informing task. In addition, depth of specialized content knowledge (SCK) as expressed by the SCK-index is often below the 3.0 benchmark. This study investigated physical education pre-service teachers' (PSTs) content development and depth of content knowledge in lesson plans for teaching net games during school placements. A total of 72 lesson plans comprising 18 four-lesson units from 18 PSTs in one physical education teacher education (PETE) program in Flanders (Belgium) were collected. Task types, task patterns, and depth of content knowledge (i.e. SCK-index) were investigated. Results showed that overall, informing tasks represented 24.2% of all tasks, extending tasks 27.2%, and repeated tasks (i.e. previously used tasks) 21.2%. Informing tasks were used most in the first lesson (44%), whereas repeated tasks were used most in the fourth lesson (62.5%). Five PSTs had an SCK-index above the 3.0 benchmark. From lessons 1 to 4, informing tasks decreased while repeated tasks increased. No consistency in task patterns was found as only three task patterns occurred twice across all PSTs' lesson plans. Our results suggest poor content development for PSTs when teaching net games during school placements. Although PSTs were from the same program, no common pattern for content development was found. We argue for a stronger focus on specialized content knowledge in PETE programs.