Understanding the Basics of Zone and Man Coverage in Football - vIQtory Sports (2023)

Zone and man coverage are essential in today's football game. Offensive coaches find innovative ways to spread the ball around the field. The key is to play around with the Soundpass cover. Area coverage and people coverage are different from each other.

Zone coverage is when defensive players cover a zone or area of ​​the field to protect themselves from passing. Man coverage is when a defensive player lines up in front of a wide receiver and mirrors his every move.

Let's learn the different types of zone coverage and how coaches use them to stop passing injuries.

Let's highlight three covers:

• Male protection with cover 0
• Cover Man.com Cover 1
• Cover man with cover 2 men

capacity 0

Deep Defender: 0

The 0-cover defense is often called behind a blitz (a 6-man push). Teams will field 6 fielders and cover all 5 eligible man-to-man receivers. We often saw a lotreporting in the pressalong with Deck 0.

Teams do this to confuse the wide receivers and get to the quarterback as quickly as possible.

Or 1

Defender deep: 1

Cover 1 is similar to Cover 0, although instead of a blitz (6-man pressure) the defense brings a dog (5-man pressure).

Defense can also be doubled on team-wide 1-cover receivers since they have an extra defender (when running a 4-man front).

learn more aboutCover 1 here.

Cover 2 man

Defender deep: 2

Cover 2 Man is a mix of man and zone cover. 5 defenders will be in individual cover while 2 safeties will cover the deep half of the field.

This coverage is often performed in deep situations where the defense knows the offense will throw the ball.

Types of supply zones in football

In football, there are mostly X zone covers

• Or 2
• Or 3
• Or 4
• Or 6

We like to teach zone coverage based on the number of deep defenders. When coverage is 3, there are 3 depth defenders: coverage 2, two depth defenders, and so on.

Or 2

Defender deep: 2

Cover 2 is the first zone cover in our zone cover series. While Coverage 1 has one deep defender with man-down coverage, Coverage 2 has two deep defenders and all lower defenders are in play.

Cover 2 is useful for defending against teams that like to shoot in lanes or short lanes. However, he puts the defenses under enormous pressure. Ultimately, the 2 defenders are responsible for dividing the field in half. Each defender must cover 26.6 yards.

learn more aboutCover 2 here.

Or 3

deep defenders: 3

Cover 3 is the most balanced zone cover since it has 3 defenders down and 4 defenders down. Deep defenders now split the field into thirds. Adding a third person to the mix now narrows the field to 17.76 yards for each deep defender to cover.

Below that, the pitch is often divided into 2 different zones on either side of the ball:

• hook/loop
• Floors

learn more aboutCover 3 here.

Or 4

Defender deep: 4

Also known as blanket,Or 4has 4 deep defenders splitting the field for 13,325 yards.

However, Deck 4's weakness is its ground coverage.

Just as we split cover among 3 deep defenders, cover 4 relies on 3 deep defenders to cover 17.76 yards each.

Typically, inferior defenders cover 3 specific areas

• real midfield
• Floors

However, trainers have been creative over the years, showing 4-deck, influencing flat lanes and using curves to steal lanes underneath.

Or 6

We cover the different types of cover for men; Now let's look at another type of zone coverage. Cover 6 Defense is another type of zone defense scheme. It is similar to the Cover-2, Cover-3, and Cover-4 defensive covers, but differs in one important way. It's not obvious what Cover-6 means. Let's start with a picture of the cover:

Coverage 6 is a split-field coverage where half the defense plays Coverage 4 and the other half plays Coverage 2. It's a way to balance coverage so offense can confuse them.

deep coverage

We can see that elements of a cover 4 and cover 2 scheme are loaded. On one side of the field we see the cornerback pulling back to take 1/4 deep field and the safety on that side the next 1/4. This leaves the other security the other half of deep field.

It's reasonable to expect the deep drop corner to fall on the same side as a nickel or slotted corner. This is because this quarterback is more adept at covering the border zone than a linebacker.

the underlying coverage

When a cornerback drops deep in field to catch a 1/4, the back cover has to rotate to fill that gap. Now that we know that the deep roll corner is usually on the same side as the nickel corner, we assume that the nickel corner will roll toward the boundary.

The linebackers' remaining core and one other cornerback essentially fall into a zone where they are. As shown in the image above, this results in each player owning 1/4 of the space below. The responsibilities below are similar to a Cover 3 defense.

Zone coverage strengths and weaknesses

The strengths and weaknesses come from who is on the field at the time of that defense. A nickel pack versus a 4-3 (or even a dime pack) will determine players' speed and covering abilities on the field.

An offense may attempt to take advantage of a linebacker (as opposed to a corner) going to the border. On the other hand, the offense may try to pass the ball to the side of the nickel corner if they prefer that confrontation to a linebacker.

Zone defense is vulnerable to action rolls. If the safety or 1/4 depth responsibility corner bites a fake, it can present a great opportunity for the offense to capitalize on. Like any defense, Cover 6 should be used as part of a visual combo to confuse an attack, and not necessarily as a basic scheme.

According to Pro Football Focus, the Chicago Bears have done so significantly more times than any other team in the NFL, with their usage surpassing the Rams in second place. Note that these teams only used this schema for less than 20% of their snapshots.

Diploma

The man who plays or the coverage of the zone is entirely up to the coach. All coverages have advantages and disadvantages. We advise you to choose the cover that best suits the team you are going to play with.