The Cover Nobody Defense
Ever heard of the Cover Two Defense? You know it. Kind of like one of the defenses that is used now by defensive coordinators throughout football that is based on the old Tampa Bay defense, The Tampa Two. Two safeties, each covering their deep half of the field while the two corners cover the short zones on the outer half of the field, with a middle linebacker responsible for racing back deep in the middle of the field to try to cover the deep middle. It used to be a great defense when it first came out. Used to be.
This is about the Cover Nobody Defense. It’s the bastardized version of the Cover Two that has been seen so much on film that pretty much all of the offensive coordinators now know schematically how to shred. It’s a defense that has holes in it the size of the holes opened by the offensive lineman at Alabama or Auburn when they play against teams like Eastern Kentucky State Technological A & M College of the South. It’s a defense that allows MORE big play touchdowns than almost any defense being played. Of all the defenses that bend but don’t break, it’s one that breaks (and skips the bending part).
Where else can a corner be playing against a wide receiver, and watch that wideout sprinting downfield with his 4.4 speed, and after about ten yards, the corner stops and assumes that someone else (the safety on his side of the field) is going to cover this man racing downfield, even if that safety may have someone else racing downfield in his immediate vicinity that he may think is the person he is supposed to cover? What if the offense has purposely designed the offensive play to make the corner and the safety THINK that they should be guarding one player, when their actual intention is to make the OTHER PLAYER the target for the pass? What if the offense was trying to trick the defense into allowing that 4.4 running wideout to be wide open to receive a long pass? Why, that play would result in a long touchdown.
Why does the defense run a scheme that has, as its weakness, a massive vulnerable hole in the secondary that can result in a long touchdown pass that can happen at any time that the safety and the corner have a lapse in communication from thinking “am I supposed to cover that wideout, or is HE going to cover him?” That sure is a LOT of pressure on a safety to have to sometimes be put in a position where he is having to cover two people going deep. (If you are covering with two deep and three go out deep and they are spaced properly, that leaves one of them open) Wouldn’t it be better if the scheme had as its weakness a ten yard gain instead of a long touchdown? Shouldn’t the defense be played so that NOBODY on offense got deeper than the deepest defender at any time, and thus they would NOT allow any long, cheap touchdowns? Shouldn’t the defense make the offense EARN every touchdown?
The point I’m making is that the corners should NOT just stop and let the wideout go flying past them unless they have 100 per cent certainty that they are not leaving the defense open to getting burned deep. Offensive coordinators know how to beat the Cover Two Defense with the same tried and true package of pass patterns that exploit the holes in that defense and create the opportunities for big plays. All of the short stuff doesn’t mean crap if they can’t get it into the end zone. The defense MUST protect against getting burned deep.
Is the Cover Two Defense the problem, or is it the fact that sometimes, some of the players are not good enough to function in the defense that is the real problem? That is a question that every defensive coordinator needs to know before he runs that defense and before he tells his corners that it is okay to just stop and let the wideout go running free past them into the clear. Because the Cover Two Defense cannot have as the result of its scheme be a long, backbreaking touchdown pass. It is NOT okay to give up touchdowns in any defense.
Otherwise, the ESPN highlight shows will continue to have all kinds of long touchdown passes being shown, with the sportscasters making all of their smart ass comments about “where was the defense during this play?” And the sports fans will watch with amazement as they see another bonehead defensive lapse as a long touchdown pass to a wide open receiver gets thrown again.
“What type of defense were they in,” one ESPN sportscaster might ask his partner? “The Cover Two?”
And his partner would chuckle, “Looks like THEY were in The Cover Nobody.”
