The "Sam" linebacker will be dropping outside to cover the flats. Offenses can attack Cover 1 schemes by sending two receivers on deep routes, provided that the quarterback has enough time for his receivers to get open. He drops down into the front and aligns from an outside leverage position to drive to the hip of the tight end in order to use his help on any inside breaking route.Underneath, the linebackers ("Sam" and "Will") match the first running back strong/weak.
Therefore, this coverage is generally used as a prevent defense to be used near the end of a game or half, meaning that the defense sacrifices the run and short pass to avoid giving up the big play with the confidence that the clock will soon expire. A Cover 1 defense is an excellent defensive alignment to run, and just about every team should have some form of it in their playbook, no matter what level of football the team is. That’s why a lot of defenses will run the Cover 2 scheme in situations in which the offense would need …
The On the strong side, the corner and safety play "Cover 4 rules", which as above the corner and safety each have a quarter of the field working for depth in their zones. Cover Zero is an entirely man-to-man coverage shell that employs a heavy pass rush and has no deep safeties on the back end.
The cover 2 zone works well against the run and short passes, but it leaves the safeties with a lot of ground to cover, exposing them to deep pass threats. The position of the ball on the field therefore dictates strength of the offense.
In Cover 3, the two corners and free safety each have responsibility for a deep third of the field, while the strong safety plays like a linebacker.On the snap, the CBs work for depth, backpedaling into their assigned zone. 2 (Y/tight end) to the closed side. Cover 1 is a first-day install scheme with defenders playing man coverage from an outside leverage position and using the free safety help in the middle of the field.The core idea is to take away outside breaking routes by alignment (outside shade) and force (or “funnel”) receivers inside of the numbers to the free safety and underneath the “hole” defender.A defense that is dependent on solid technique in the secondary, Cover 1 allows teams to create eight-man fronts (strong safety drops into the box) with the protection of the free safety over the top.Today, let’s use the All-22 coaches tape to break down the basic alignments, leverage and responsibilities in Cover 1. The main advantage of a Cover 4 defense is that it is extremely difficult for even the best quarterbacks to complete long passes against it. That’s it because of the restrictions the boundary puts on the out route, 7 (corner), etc.Here’s an example of the inside shade from the Cardinals’ Patrick Peterson versus the Eagles’ With Jackson in a “plus” split (three yards on the top of the numbers, ball on the far hash), Peterson aligns on the inside shoulder of the wide receiver.This allows Peterson to take away the slant/smash by alignment while also having the ability to use the sideline as his help versus the fade/comeback.And when Jackson releases outside, Peterson is now in a position to “pin” (or squeeze) the receiver to the boundary to stack on top of the fade or limit the comeback.In Cover 1, defenders have to “travel” with their coverage. Cover 4 refers to 4 deep defenders each guarding one-fourth of the deep zone. It means there are no safeties deep.
In a traditional Cover 1, the free safety plays deep and all of the other defenders lock in man coverage to an assigned player for the duration of the play. Cover 2 is a zone defense with the two safeties playing deep. The deep defender must decide which receiver to help out on, leaving the other in man coverage which may be a mismatch. The advantage of cover 2 is that it provides great versatility to the defense as the corners can play run, short pass, and deep pass with the confidence that they have support from two deep safeties.