Football 101 - Intro to Coverages

To attack coverage's it helps to have a general understanding of them and their weaknesses. Generally, defenses are split into two families two high and single high defenses.

Single high defenses are: cover 1 (man) and cover 3(zone).

Two high defenses are cover 2 (man) cover 2 (zone) and cover 4(zone).

There's also a separate cover 0(man) defense that is a little different.

 All these defenses have variations and combinations but the above are the fundamental versions to understand.

Man Defense

Against man defense, you want to find mismatches. This is either by star players like a high rated receiver. Or a natural mismatch like a quick running back on a linebacker or a receiving tight end on a safety. I generally like having players who are natural mismatches rather than relying on having a wide receiver that must consistently dominate a corner who is a natural match-up for him.

Zone Defense

Against a zone defense, you want to attack the weaknesses in the individual coverages. We will talk about those weaknesses in future posts but generally against a zone you want to attack with speed and skill in space. Try to get your fast players matched-up against slower players or players with lower skill in as much space as possible.

In future posts, we go over how the coverages work and some ways to attack them.