Cover 3

[drgnXman]

Cover 3 has got to be one of the worst defenses i have seen, even with great athletes at FS and 2 CBs, a good passing team will run 4 vertical streaks, and the qb will look off the safety to on side and bang it home. its open all day long.

[KT2000]

Cover 3 is designed for deep middle coverage, and you are right about flooding that with something like 4 or even 5 vertical routes. You'd be better served in a Cover 4 shell (quarters) against that many WRs.

In both the Cover 3 and Cover 4, you leave yourself vulnerable to the quick hitting passes with the corners working for depth in each coverage to cover their vertical portion of the field. You need good all-around corners that can make one on one plays. You need to be able to come up and take people down in general with the scheme designed to be softer vs. the underneath stuff.

If I was sitting in a 4 WR formation with twins to each side (King) and looking at a Cover 3, I'd want to have a post/corner combination on both sides for one of the deep ball options. For the quick hitter, I'd look to throw a hitch/whip/bubble if I had a good WR that might make a defender or two miss with the corners backed off. Quick slants with all 4 WRs. Outs. Stuff like that.

[dragonfootballfan]

nobody intelligent will go into cover 3 against 4 wide without a lot of confidence that they would be able to get a lot of pressure on the quarterback

[dragonsdaddy]

nobody intelligent will go into cover 3 against 4 wide without a lot of confidence that they would be able to get a lot of pressure on the quarterback
or if they have the best cover lbs in the state. cover 3 is pretty much giving up vs a spread team of any import.

[AZTiger]

In a cover 3 the underneath routes can be picked up easily by the SS and the weakside OLB.

What I don't understand is...how the hell the Cover 2 has become so successful in the NFL

[KT2000]

In a cover 3 the underneath routes can be picked up easily by the SS and the weakside OLB.

What I don't understand is...how the hell the Cover 2 has become so successful in the NFL

Fair point there. I'm also baffled by the popularity of the "Tampa 2". It's a combo of Cover 2 and Cover 3 principles. Keep two safeties in the deep halves like Cover 2, but the MLB drops back for middle 3rd.

Over half the league runs the same offense, so I guess a nice simple defensive scheme can be applied across the board. :)

[drgnXman]

and also in the nfl you dont have 4 WRs out on every play. and with amazing defensive athletes its easy to catch on against some of the weaker less talented WR corps. many highschool teams are running that cover 3/2 thing tho. flowermound does it. can be fairly easy to beat

[AZTiger]

and also in the nfl you dont have 4 WRs out on every play. and with amazing defensive athletes its easy to catch on against some of the weaker less talented WR corps. many highschool teams are running that cover 3/2 thing tho. flowermound does it. can be fairly easy to beat

Some teams may also run what is called Quarter/Quarter/Halves...where half the field will show a cover 2 and the other half a cover 4

[G-Man]

Fair point there. I'm also baffled by the popularity of the "Tampa 2". It's a combo of Cover 2 and Cover 3 principles. Keep two safeties in the deep halves like Cover 2, but the MLB drops back for middle 3rd.

Over half the league runs the same offense, so I guess a nice simple defensive scheme can be applied across the board. :)

Its not the same C 2 as most play in HS. Its called a soft 2 because the corners drop with verticals to 15 yds instead of ignoring verticals and playing a "hard" force corner. This allows the safety time to come over the top and it takes care of the hole behind the corner at 10-15yds that is the sweet spot of C 2 in HS.