The Cover 2 Defense

[Kruza]

Quote: Originally Posted by feeq14

True. Freeny is what 6-1 and very undersized. It would never work. Their corners dont have man coverage skills. Dungy never really built the team into an effective cover 2 scheme team. The best Cover 2 team the last few year was teh bears but their age and lack of pass rush has really shown this year. But if people remember when tommie harris was healthy he was the perfect clone of warren sapp. Urlacher used to play safety in college and consistently helped lock down deep middle routes. All the players played disciplined and our front four pass rush cause a ton of turnovers. The cover 2 was a defense catered to stoping west coast offenses, but with vertical passing and spread making a comback in the league you saw the Bears, colts, and Bucs getting gashed all year. And dont get started on the talent free lions.

LOL! Don't do it, man. You'll end up writing a short story on the Lions issues trying to play the Tampa-2 scheme. Thank goodness we've hired Gun (Gunther Cunningham) as our new defensive coordinator.

Anyway, I pretty much agree with what everyone has said about the Tampa-2 in this thread. But I'm surprised no one has mentioned the importance of the weakside linebacker in this scheme. This guy has to be the absolute stud in run support since he'll more often than not be the unblocked guy (assuming the safety didn't drop down in the box) closest to the line of scrimmage who has to tackle the ball carrier. If this guy can't elude blockers on his way to the ball carrier, then one of the safeties will have to be dropped into the box area as a pre-snap adjustment or else the entire unit will get repeatedly gashed on runs. Plus the WLB has to be fast enough to cover flats and also wide receivers running short crossers and, oh, also not get fooled on screens. Dude has to be on his pass-run keys instantly and not make any mistakes on where he has to go.

Also, if the 4-man pass rush is consistently great during a course of a game, this allows defenders to make subtle coverage adjustments on the back end to jump and "squeeze" certain short and intermediate routes which makes passing the football extremely tougher to do as a game progresses. But if the rush isn't there, then could leave even larger windows for quarterbacks and receivers to expose since defender would be tipping their hands a little early, so to speak.

Kruza

[JustWinBaby]

Quote: Originally Posted by ProfessaPackMan

The Vikings also run the Cover 2 and other than MAYBE the Bucs, I don't think there is a team that runs it better than the Vikings.

viks are hands down the best cover2 team imo. 2 amazing dlinemen in kevin williams and jared allen, one good one in pat williams and an OK guy in edwards(hes the other starter right?)

all they need to be a premier team is a good DE opposite of jared allen, some DT depth, and a QB.

[z Revis]

Thanks for the help guys. Anyway, now that Herman Edwards is on the loose, maybe the Colts should go after him as their new D-coordinator. Mark Schlereth, of ESPN, doesn't think Edwards will get another head coaching position for a few more years. He thinks Edwards will be a good D-coordinator or a positions coach. The only downside for the Colts to hire Edwards, is that they'll probably run the same Cover 2 defense which I hate. But oh well, maybe Edwards will change it up a little more than Ron Meeks did and be a little more aggressive sometimes.

[J.R. Locke]

Good stuff. Just too add. The Cover 2 is a very simple scheme. I remember reading about the Bucs D that won the super bowl and often they didn't change much at all as far as assignments and "plays" throughout the game.

The key is getting reads (pre-snap formation strong-weak, how many receivers in a zone, pass-run). Then of course personal matters a great deal.

I like the basic idea of the cover 2 zone schemes. It allows players to play aggressive and without confusion. Which on defense is important.

[bkrich83]

Quote: Originally Posted by J.R. Locke

I like the basic idea of the cover 2 zone schemes. It allows players to play aggressive and without confusion. Which on defense is important.

The Cover 2 is hardly exclusive in that characteristic however.

But I do agree, I like simple defenses athat allow defenders to react and make plays.

[kcarr]

For the most part I prefer man coverages to zone. It generally seems easier to blitz out of man defenses. While I would always prefer getting pressure without blitzing, I kinda but things in this order as far as that goes.

Pressure without blitz > pressure with blitz > no pressure without blitz > no pressure with blitz

Basing out of a man cover 2 gives a little more ability to blitz most of the time than a normal cover 2 zone defense like the colts run. It does however take good coverage corners who can be expensive.

[Exonerated]

Cover 2 is very vanilla.

You'd think if the defense is playing almost the same play every time, it would be easy to exploit.

Isn't it basically the same playcall pretty much every time?

[bkrich83]

Quote: Originally Posted by kcarr

For the most part I prefer man coverages to zone. It generally seems easier to blitz out of man defenses. While I would always prefer getting pressure without blitzing, I kinda but things in this order as far as that goes. Pressure without blitz > pressure with blitz > no pressure without blitz > no pressure with blitz Basing out of a man cover 2 gives a little more ability to blitz most of the time than a normal cover 2 zone defense like the colts run. It does however take good coverage corners who can be expensive.

Because teams do such a great job of protecting the QB these days, and with the evolution of the 3-4 teams just don't play a lot of 2 deep man under coverage while rushing 4.

Although since everyone loves to bring up the extra defender in the box, you will see a lot more man/free coverage, with the extra safety sitting over the TE.