Understanding coverages allows you to know what the defense is trying to do. If you can understand where the defenders are going to be and what their responsibilities are then you can figure out ways to exploit and beat the defense. Mastering the mental side of the game is the separator from good to great and great to elite. Once you start playing at high levels, everyone is big, fast, athletic, and talented so the separation comes from preparation and understanding the mental side of the game better than anyone else on the field.
If you want to learn all the details of cover 3, including what every position is responsible for, then check out my other blog post on cover 3.
It is absolutely critical to know the strengths and weaknesses of defenses as an offensive player. If you begin to understand how defensive coordinators think then you can figure out the best ways are to attack them and beat their defense. It’s like the old saying goes, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”.
There are many reasons to run a 4-4 cover 3 defense, but we will talk about some of the more common reasons you will see this defense. First off, with 4 defensive linemen and linebackers the defense has 8 defenders that can help play run. It is a great defense if you are playing a team that is run heavy because of the amount of players that can help with run support. Second, cover 3 does a decent job at taking away the fade route from the outside WR. If a team loves to throw fades to the outside WRs then cover 3 might be a good option to help combat that.
Like mentioned earlier, 4-4 cover 3 is a good defense vs the run. On the flip side, you might think that it is not the best defense vs the pass. You would be correct. Although it is good against certain routes like fades, there are plenty of holes if you want to throw the ball vs cover 3. Let’s talk about some common ones…
Seams:
With the safety being responsible for the deep middle ⅓, it is often difficult for him to cover 2 WRs going up each seam. Well coached defenses will do two things to help with this.
1. Make sure the outside linebackers jam the WRs and not let them get a clean release up the seam.
2. Corners may help try and squeeze or undercut the route.
Here are 2 big keys if you want to throw a seam vs cover 3.
1. Look off the safety. Try and move the safety opposite of where you want to throw the ball.
2. Before you throw the seam, make sure you are aware of where the corner is and that he is not trying to undercut the route.
Flats/Intermediate Sideline:
With the corner playing off and trying to keep everything in front of him, it often leads underneath routes to the sideline open. Remember who is responsible for the flats … the outside linebackers. Therefore, we must hold the outside linebackers if we want to throw the flat. How do we hold the outside linebackers? Remember their first responsibility is to jam the WR that is head up over them if he releases vertical. Therefore, we can send the inside WR on a route that has a vertical release (Seam, hitch, etc.) to hold that outside backer and open up the flats.
High/Low over the Middle
With both inside backers dropping to each curl zone and the safety playing deep middle, there is a natural opening in the middle of the field between the inside backers and underneath the safety. If you have one route that finishes deep over the middle behind the safety and one that finishes shallow over the middle underneath the safety then you can just read the safety and throw opposite of where he is. He stays shallow, throw deep. He goes deep, throw shallow.
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