Transcription
Hey, welcome back to another episode of Football 101, where today we're going to be going over defensive coverages. The very highly requested video, so let's get into it.
So, what is a coverage? A coverage is a defensive play or scheme that they use to defend the pass. At the base of these coverages are the individual responsibilities of each player, and most of the times, they will be doing one or two things. They will either be in man coverage or zone coverage.
If a defender is asked to play man coverage, that means he is simply going to mirror his man. He's going to follow his man all across the field, and he's going to do whatever his man does. So, you could see a cornerback following a wide receiver all across the field.
Zone coverage, on the other hand, is instead of following one guy, you defend one area or one zone. So, it is really as simple as the name is. In man coverage, you have your man and you follow that man, no matter what. In zone coverage, you have your zone and you defend that zone.
Now, quickly, before we enter into the different coverages we're going to be looking at today, I quickly want to go over the the different names for a lot of the main types of zones, in case I use some of them in this video and I don't want to cause any confusion. So, let's start at the top and work our way down.
One of the main types of zone is called a deep half. This is when the defender has, well, the whole deep half of the field. Generally, it's going to be about all 15 yards in back. Similarly, if you have two defenders to one half, you could have a deep quarter for that person is responsible to the whole quarter of the field, 15 yards or deeper. And once again, just as similar, you can also also have a deep third. However, it can be noted though that with deep thirds, you can find it that the middle third is called a deep middle, and the outside thirds can be called deep outs.
In between the deep level and the intermediate level, you find what's called a hook zone. It's about 15 to 20 yards from the line of scrimmage and directly in the middle of the field, like a deep middle. Now, in the core of the intermediate level, you're going to have the field split up a lot more horizontally than vertically. If we start off, if we look in the middle, it's split up into two zones instead of one. Usually find two hook zones in the middle of the field. In the outside zones of the intermediate third of the field, you're going to find two zones as well, with the innermost one called a curl zone, and the outmost one called, well, an out zone.
If we move to the five yards and less zones, there's really only going to be three zones. The core zone is just from the tackle to the other tackle, the offensive line, and this is called a delay or a rat zone. And then the zone to either side of the rat zone is called a flat zone. You might often hear this all the time, saying attacking the flat. And then anything behind the line of scrimmage is just called a swing zone.
One very important thing to note though about zones is that often times a player's zone won't end up directly in one of these. It'll overlap multiple. In those cases, you combine the names. So, if you use this zone here on the screen, see how it goes both over the hook and the curl zone? This is called a hook curl zone. Or this zone here, you see how it's over both the flat and the curl? This is called a curl flat zone.
So, now that we have that out of the way, let's start getting into the coverages. We're going to start with Cover Zero and work our way up, going through Cover One, Cover Two, and we'll see how far we get.
So, let's start with Cover Zero. The first thing that we can note is the number in the name corresponds with the safety shell of the play. So, with Cover Zero, there are zero safeties behind covering deep. This trick can be used for most coverages, but once you get up to Cover Six or Cover Seven or anything up in that range, there are some outliers and other rules. There's not six safeties back deep. We'll get there when we get there, though.
So, back to Cover Zero. Cover Zero, in most cases, is an all-out blitz, 'cause you have no deep help. So, you might as well be rushing the quarterback as much as you can. The most common and basic form of Cover Zero looks like this: you're going to have man coverage across the board with five man coverage people for the five eligible receivers, and you're going to bring at least six people in at pressure to attack the quarterback. This coverage is really good at stopping the inside run, bringing extreme pressure, and being a good red zone tool. But it is also weak and very susceptible to a deep ball. You can get beat outside for the runs since you're committing so much heavily inside of the line, and you really have no help at all for any defensive back, 'cause you have no safety.
Cover One, like the name says, has one high safety. So, this coverage is a man coverage with five man underneath. But this time, you do have safety help over the top. So, it's a little more safe, but you still get that aggressive one-on-one matchups, and you still have the option to bring five people. All in all, it's a pretty decent coverage, really against everything. It's a lot of times used as a base coverage, especially when paired with coverage or two, so you'll see this one a lot. The only main real weaknesses are that you do have man coverage across the board, so you're betting that your defensive back is better than their wide receiver, and you only have one help over the top. So, if two guys go deep, you can only help one guy.
Next up, we have Cover Two. So, once again, we have two high safeties this time. But interesting enough with Cover Two, though, is it has both a man coverage variation and a zone coverage variation. So, let's start with the zone coverage variation. You're going to have two deep safeties, three three intermediate zones, and two flat zones. This coverage has a really strong intermediate passing game defense and those flat defense. But it can be susceptible to a couple weaknesses. One is it has two safeties that are split, which means there the middle of the field is open deep. It also is a little lighter against the run because one of your safeties is obviously removed and put up high. But then also, there is the very notorious hole shot. You might have heard this term. It is basically when you throw the ball into the hole between the safety and the flat defender. That is the biggest weakness of Cover Two zone.
Now, for Cover Two Man, you can also see this being called Cover Five because of the five man coverages underneath. But anyway, Cover Two Man is structured the same way as Cover Two Zone, with the two safeties high up top covering over top. But the big difference is, instead of a bunch of zones underneath, those five zones, you're going to have five man coverage defenders underneath. This coverage is a decent pass defense because the cornerbacks can play very tight and up at the line of scrimmage because of the safety help over top. But it can typically be a little weak against the run game because one of the safeties is once again taken out of the run game, usually, and you have man coverage on the outside, and you have typically light numbers in the box because of them lining up in man coverage with the receivers.
So, let's move on into Cover Three. Once again, the number, we have three deep safeties into those deep third coverages. For the underneath, though, you're typically going to see four zones that look pretty much like this. One thing to note though about Cover Three is it's, you won't ever really see a man coverage out of this, 'cause then you would only be rushing three with man coverage with three deep defenders. There's just a lot that could go wrong in the flats and underneath, and it could be very susceptible to the screen game. So, just, just know you're not going to see it.
Overall, though, this coverage is solid against the run because most of the time, like I said, you're going to be in zone, so they're going to be looking towards the quarterback. It's good against the deep ball with all the deep coverage, and the strong safety is usually actually brought a little closer to the play because the wide corners usually take those outside deep zones. This coverage can be susceptible though to attacks against what's called the seams. Those are the lines or area or, well, the hashes in between each deep third. It can also be susceptible though to attacks in the flat and underneath because you're committing so much effort to the intermediate and deep zones.
And for the final coverage we're going to look at today, we're going to take a look at Cover Four. So, for the final time today, here we go again. Cover Four. So, you're going to have four deep safeties. You're going to have those deep quarter coverages, hence the nickname quarters. Well, for Cover Four, typically underneath these quarters, you're going to find three zones in the intermediate passing area. Now, Cover Four is like a more extreme version of Cover Three. All of its strengths are just the more extreme strengths, they're way better at it. But all the weaknesses are even more extreme in this light. Cover Four is great against the deep ball. It's one of the best coverages out there. But on the flip side, though, the underneath and flats, just like Cover Three, but turned up to 12, are so incredibly weak due to everything I just said. That's why just base regular Cover Four is practically only used as a prevent defense. But with that being said, there's a version of Cover Four called Match Quarters or Cover Seven, which has a whole bunch of different rules that we're not going to get into today. But that version of Cover Four quarters is used every down.
So, that's going to about wrap it up for this one. We got through Cover One, Cover Two, Cover Three, Cover Four, and Cover Five today. Believe me, there's still a whole bunch more to go through, like Cover Six, Cover Seven, Drop Eight coverages, and a whole bunch of variations of all the coverages I showed today. So, let me know if you guys want to see more of that. But for now, I guess I'll see you till the next one. You guys know how this goes. There's going to be some film on in the background if you want to stay and see what I just taught you guys about. But until then, see you around.
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