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This article was written in 2018 at the height of that season's "offense is dead" media take, and while that ended up not fully being the case the article does offer a lot of intelligent analysis with zone pattern matching and the evolution of the defensive side of the field at the NFL vs college level. Where it really is interesting is that it covers the old "assignment/alignment" approach and how that isn't fully working vs today's offenses, which IMO factors in largely in Coach McVay's thinking of replacing a Hall of Fame DC with a Fangio-tree hire.
touchdownwire.usatoday.com
The Match Game, Part 1: How NFL defenses lost their way
Doug Farrar
November 6, 2018 11:32 pm ET
In this three-part series, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar takes a deep dive into how NFL defenses have lost the figurative arms race — and what defensive coaches can do to recover. In the first installment, Doug gets help from Matt Bowen and Louis Riddick, ESPN analysts and former NFL defensive backs, to discuss how offenses are playing in the new millennium … and defenses are definitely not keeping up.
It’s a problem of schematic imbalance.
In the constant struggle NFL defenses face against the passing game in 2018, this play drove me the most nuts. With 12 seconds left in the Week 4 Bengals-Falcons matchup, Atlanta had a 36-31 lead and Cincinnati had the ball at the Falcons’ 13-yard line. The Bengals had top receiver A.J. Green (No. 18) matched up on rookie cornerback Isaiah Oliver (No. 20), and at the snap, Oliver took a split second to watch running back Mark Walton run a route out of the backfield. That’s all it took for Green to run his route through Atlanta’s depleted secondary for an easy game-winning touchdown.
Why, you may ask, were the Falcons running a passive two-deep coverage in the red zone? On the play before, Oliver locked up on receiver Alex Erickson (No. 12) to the same side, and that resulted in an incompletion. There were two deep safeties, but Oliver followed his receiver all the way through the route with no distraction — in part because Walton ran a release route up the middle.
The Falcons became the first team since the 1966 Giants to lose two straight games while scoring 36 or more points — they had lost 43-37 to the Saints in overtime the week before — but that’s not the focus of this article. The focus here is the message implicit in those two plays: Modern offenses are adapting constantly, and modern defenses are not. That, above all else, is why offenses are on such a torrid pace right now.
Visionaries vs. dinosaurs
No offense is working at a more torrid pace than Kansas City’s, led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes. And that is no mistake — head coach Andy Reid has been assembling a coaching staff and roster to take the league apart for years. While other NFL coaches have derided college offenses as gimmick-laden entities that will not consistently work at the professional level, Reid hired former Vikings head coach Brad Childress as a “spread game analyst,” hired former Nevada head coach Chris Ault as a consultant, and unleashed a ton of spread passing concepts with Alex Smith, who ran option stuff under Urban Meyer at Utah. Mahomes, coming from Texas Tech’s wide-open offense, was the perfect QB for what Reid had been setting up for years.
And now, more and more NFL offenses are beating NFL defenses to death with expansive formations and concepts, the minds behind those defenses are struggling mightily to keep pace.
Matt Bowen, the co-host of ESPN’s “NFL Matchup” show, played safety for the Rams, Packers, Washington and Bills from 2000 through 2006. Twelve years after he left the NFL, and in an era where he’s studied as much defensive tape as anyone else in the business, Bowen looks at plays like Green’s touchdown and is aghast at how far offenses have stretched ahead of defenses at the highest level of football.
The reason? According to Bowen, it’s a lack of forward thinking — a lot of defenses are playing the same schemes they would have 10 to 15 years ago, when offenses were nowhere near as complex as they are now.
“The thing I’m noticing is that teams are playing a lot of static Cover-3,” Bowen told me; he wrote a great primer about Cover-3 here. “When you do that, you’re putting yourself in a very adverse situation as a defense. There are natural windows to attack Cover-3. I think it’s a major problem. I’m tired of seeing Cover-3. I’m tired of seeing teams get beat down the middle of the field. There are too many open windows on the field. A lot of teams are playing more zone coverages, and that’s fine, but how are you doing it? Whether you’re playing three-deep or two-deep, and I think a lot of teams are playing more zone coverages. I have no problem with zone coverages, but are you matching to players?”
Regarding the play in question, Bowen said that the Cover-2 scheme the Falcons were playing against the Bengals was just as ill-suited, especially when Oliver gambled on going with Green instead of defending the flat as he should have.
“A.J. Green was in a minus split here, and if you’re the cornerback in that Cover-2, you need to get back and protect the play. I don’t care if you’re a rookie. You’re in a game-winning situation, and you’re playing Cover-2. As an offensive coordinator, that’s what you beg for. And now, you have the perfect route called for it. Here, [Oliver] has to go to the flat, and you’re putting the safety in a terrible position. For that safety to make that play, he’s got to guess on the route. He played it the right way and went to the receiver, You’re breaking at a 45-degree angle, but you need your cornerback to sink and take that away. The defensive philosophy here is, we’re going to protect the end zone. You throw it underneath, that’s fine — we’re going to tackle. But to get to that point, you have to protect the end zone first.”
There’s less margin for error with static coverage. In the early 2010s, the Seahawks were able to play predominantly Cover-1 and Cover-3 defenses in which two outside cornerbacks matched up against receivers, and a single deep safety took the back third of the field. But for most teams, and even a few years later when offenses have learned new tricks, static coverage is no longer feasible.
The Vikings found their own version of Cover-3 regret against the Rams in a 38-31 Week 4 loss.
Losing the numbers game
Here, out of a three-tight-end set, the Rams spread the field pre-snap after looking at first like they’re going with a power formation. You can see the defensive confusion as the Vikings try to get aligned — and worst of all for Mike Zimmer’s team, wide receiver Robert Woods (No. 17) found himself covered by linebacker Anthony Barr (No. 55). The best modern offensive coordinators look to handicap defenses with pre-snap motion, and against a relatively static defense, this is what happens when a coaching genius like Sean McVay pulls out all the stops — an easy 31-yard touchdown pass.
McVay also loves to stress defenses out of tight — or “minus” — splits, in which the pre-snap formation shows no intent of the play to come. It’s a static pre-snap offense with all kinds of post-snap possibilities, and when it comes up against a defense playing coverage as if in a bygone era, bad things are bound to happen.
“Granted, they came out with a three-tight-end set and adjusted, but still, Minnesota was in Cover-3,” Bowen said of this play. “Now, this was Sean McVay calling the right personnel, and he got them on that one. And that’s OK. It happens.
“But I’m seeing really poor communication by secondaries. And that happens a lot against a McVay offense, against a [Kyle] Shanahan offense. What happens is that you have these minus splits where everyone’s inside the numbers. And there’s some sort of play-action, whether it’s the downhill run or jet [sweep motion], trying to get those linebackers to move up. If you’re playing zone coverage behind that, you’re going to create voids in the coverage all day long.”
As Bowen concluded, it’s not just that offenses are adding different things to older schemes — it’s that they’re throwing an entirely new structure out there.
“It’s a combination of schematics and the way the game is played right now. When you mesh those together, you have these explosive passing offenses. It’s also what I call the adaptation to the modern pro-style offense. Right now, that means the quick passing game at the top of the call sheet, vertical throws that are more inside the numbers, play-action, and RPOs (run-pass option plays). It’s on defenses to try and take that stuff away, which requires a lot of eye discipline, a lot of technique and a lot of coverage that matches to receivers. [If] you get into a zone drop at 10 to 12 yards, it isn’t good enough anymore.”
Lost in the red zone
Even ostensibly great defenses fall victim to static coverage nightmares, and they do it against broken and inconsistent offenses. The Jaguars found this out in their 40-7 Week 6 loss to the Cowboys, when 5-foot-8 slot receiver Cole Beasley caught two touchdown passes from Dak Prescott and seemed to have the cheat code to a defense that, before the season began, was touted as perhaps the league’s best.
I’ve detailed those two touchdowns before, but I wanted to do a deeper dive with Louis Riddick, the ESPN analyst and former safety for the 49ers, Falcons, Browns and Raiders from 1991-1998. Riddick’s time with the Browns from 1993-1994 was especially instructive because his head coach was Bill Belichick and his defensive coordinator was Nick Saban.
How did the Cowboys offense, which would have been better off locked in a shed against the Titans on Monday night, pull this off? Well, they had a lot of help.
The first Beasley score came with 9:28 left in the first half, and you can see wide receiver Allen Hurns (No. 17) motion side to the left side of the field. Cornerback Jalen Ramsey (No. 20) takes Hurns outside, while cornerback Tyler Patmon (No. 23) appears to take responsibility for Beasley (No. 11), who will run a simple crossing pattern from the left slot. But at the snap, both Patmon and safety Tashaun Gipson (No. 38) hold up in coverage, and Beasley runs right through.
Riddick was not impressed by this defensive call.
“The fact that they take Allen Hurns up top to stretch the formation doesn’t really matter. The work here is really being done by Cole, [No. 13, receiver Michael] Gallup, and the tight end at the top of the screen [No. 87, Geoff Swaim]. This is Cover-3 — it’s just 3-Lock, is what it is. You’re playing man-to-man outside, and you have curl/flat, hook/curl, hook/curl, curl/flat across the formation. But [No. 44, linebacker] Myles Jack is messing this up. He’s playing this like it’s Cover-2, and he’s a middle-read 3 player. He’s carrying 3 [the third-read receiver] down the pipe like it’s Cover-2. He busted the call. What he should be doing is sitting right where Cole just caught that ball. He should be sitting there at the 10-yard line either picking it, or Dak is holding the ball [because Beasley is covered]. Now, Dak would probably go outside to Gallup because Jalen Ramsey is stumbling all over the place, but Jack messes this up.
“But if you’re going to play 3-Lock out here, why are they playing off-man in the red area? When your cornerbacks are best at jamming, rerouting and playing aggressively? If Gallup runs a hard curl right there, it’s a first down. Once again, this is just terrible coaching.”
The Jags went with Cover-2 on the second touchdown, with no better results. This time, receiver Gallup splits wide pre-snap, and cornerback A.J. Bouye (No. 21) takes Gallup. Patmon is the slot defender again, and he takes a basic hook coverage to the goal line. This time, the Jaguars are playing two deep safeties, and safety Barry Church (No. 42) takes Beasley into the end zone. In red zone version of this defense, the outside cornerbacks take the outside receivers to the boundary to guard the fade route, the safeties generally sit on routes in their areas, and the slot defender will take the seam/hook responsibility. He must watch the slot defender and adjust to his route, which the Jaguars didn’t do here.
“They’re rushing two and dropping nine,” Riddick said. “And let’s just take the two defensive tackles out of it. The Jaguars are playing a form of Red 2 (a goal-line Cover-2 defense), in which Jack is taking the third read up the seam. The safety’s sitting on Beasley’s outside shoulder, and Patmon is sitting on the inside shoulder. So, Patmon should be wheeling in on that little turn in right there [the inside part of the pivot route]. He should actually look Cole up that route and shut it off. Church should be sitting outside for the pivot like he is. Church should let that come right to him because the throwing lanes are all cut off, anyway.
“Now, at the bottom of the screen? Same thing. One, [No. 50, linebacker] Telvin Smith should hit the (expletive) out of Allen Hurns here. He should jam him at the five-yard line. It’s like he’s avoiding him! He should ‘collision’ Hurns, wheel with him, and sit outside on him as well. They play this OK on the bottom of the screen, but I don’t understand why this is uncontested. Why is everything uncontested? The only guy who’s touching anybody is A.J. Bouye up top. And he’s doing it — not because he’s really trying to, but because he’s there.
“If [No. 97, defensive tackle] Malik Jackson is dropping into coverage, why isn’t he trying to hit [No. 80, tight end Rico] Gathers right there? At the snap, why is Patmon even backing up? Why is Barry Church backing up four-and-a-half yards in the end zone? Why don’t you sit there about a yard deep and just wait? Just SIT THERE! (Riddick’s voice has increased in both volume and contempt all the way through this particular play.)
“This just pisses me off. I watch it every week, and I’m thinking, this is just too easy. The only thing Beasley’s doing here is, he’s running away from where everybody is. You guys are all gonna go in here? OK — I’m going to go out here. And you don’t want to touch me? OK, perfect.”
I asked Riddick to write the foreword to my recent book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football. In that foreword, he had an interesting tidbit about his time with Belichick and Saban in Cleveland that will take us to Part 2 of “The Match Game.” Cleveland’s coaches had an absolute need to respond to the explosive offenses of the time, and they combined man and zone coverage in a very interesting fashion.
The Match Game, Part 2: How Nick Saban reimagined defensive coverage
Doug Farrar
November 8, 2018 10:00 am ET
In this three-part series, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar takes a deep dive into how NFL defenses have lost the figurative arms race – and what defensive coaches can do to recover. Part 1 revealed the liabilities in current NFL defensive philosophies. In Part 2, we take a closer look at the coverage that could bring balance back to NFL defenses – with the help of two former NFL defensive backs and a high school secondary coach who has his own set of answers.
Saban’s realization: The origins of match coverage
It was the early 1990s in Cleveland, and Browns defensive coordinator Nick Saban had a serious problem: He could not figure out how to beat the Steelers, and their array of receivers running complementary deep routes. Not that the Steelers of the time would have rivaled the Greatest Show on Turf, but four receivers against three defensive backs was an obvious mathematical disadvantage. And it showed up whether Saban called man or zone coverage.
“This started with the Cleveland Browns,” Saban said at a 2010 Mississippi coaching clinic, via ElevenWarriors.com. “I was the defensive coordinator in the early 90s and Pittsburgh would run ‘Seattle’ on us — four streaks. Then they would run two streaks and two out routes, what I call ‘pole’ route from 2×2. We got to where could not play 3-deep zone because we rerouted the seams and played zone, and what I call ‘Country Cover-3’ (drop to your spot, reroute the seams, break on the ball). Well, when [Dan] Marino is throwing it, that old break-on-the-ball [expletive] don’t work.
“So, because we could not defend this, we could not play three-deep. When you can’t play zone, what do you do next? You play man (Cover-1), but if their [players] are better than your [players], you can’t play Cover-1. We got to where we couldn’t run Cover-1. So now we can’t play an eight-man front.
As Saban pointed out, the 1994 Browns lost five games, and three of them (twice in the regular season, once in the playoffs) were to Pittsburgh. And when Saban tried to move from Cover-3 to Cover-1 (a single deep safety with man coverage outside), the same issues arose. As he said, “If their [players] are better than your [players], you can’t play Cover-1.”
And so, the Browns couldn’t present eight-man fronts against Pittsburgh’s power running game. Something had to be done. What did Saban do? He combined zone and man coverage, and came up with the pattern-matching concept.
“We came up with this concept — how we can play Cover-1 and Cover-3 at the same time, so we can do both these things and one thing would complement the other,” Saban said. “We came up with the concept ‘Rip/Liz match.'”
(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Put simply, basic pattern-matching has a defender playing zone through the first part of a route. Then, as the receiver makes a move to affect the stem of the route, the defender switches to man coverage. It gives defenders and their coaches added flexibility to take receivers upfield. In combination coverages, pattern-matching also allows defenses to affect multi-receiver sets to either side, as you see in the NFL’s current spread concepts. The “Rip/Liz” language simply tells the defense which side is the dominant alignment—“Rip” for right, “Liz” for left.
ESPN analyst and former NFL defensive back Louis Riddick, who broke down two plays in Part 1 of “The Match Game,” played for Saban and head coach Bill Belichick in Cleveland in 1993 and 1994, and he was introduced to pattern-matching from the first day he hit the Browns facility. Saban and Belichick had already dialed it up by that time.
“Pattern-matching was always a part of what the safeties and cornerbacks did,” Riddick told me. “If we called it Cover-4 (four-deep, man-based coverage), there were very specific reads for us when routes got into that 10- to 12-yard area. The coverage turned from zone to man. You ‘buy’ a route based on which way the receiver went — whether they broke to your left or your right, and where your help would be coming from. It always started off as a zone call, but once they got into your specific area, the specific depth you needed them to get to, it quickly turned to man.
“It’s what Nick and Bill had talked about — there was no way you could play spot drop coverage when the receivers had options as far as ‘we’re just going to go where you’re not.’ Once the receivers got down the field, it had to turn into man. It was what I learned, and it made sense.”
(Cody Alexander, MatchQuarters.Com)
And if it made sense then, it certainly makes sense now, when receiver formations and route calls are so much more advanced. In addition, the complexity of option routes, in which receivers decide their tail ends of their routes depending on the actions of the defenders covering them, makes traditional spot drop coverage all the more difficult to maintain.
Like Riddick, Matt Bowen is an ESPN analyst who played defensive back in the NFL. As a co-host on the network’s “NFL Matchup” show, Bowen watches as much tape now as he did in his playing days. Bowen also coaches at the high school level, so he’s got a great eye into all levels of the game. And like Riddick, Bowen is surprised that NFL teams aren’t using more match coverage against modern offenses. Especially when offenses run plays at a hyperactive tempo and defenses are more stressed than ever.
“Defenses are caught right now where they just want to get alignment and assignment. And when you’re just playing alignment and assignment football, I don’t think it’s good enough anymore. And that’s where you say, “OK — my guys can line up, and they can adjust.’ That’s it. And that’s great, if you’re in OTAs. But in the game, from a defensive perspective, what’s your disguise? How are you going to set the tempo for the offense? When a defense dictates the tempo, they take over the game.”
So, how does pattern-matching make a difference? I reached out to another high school coach for a surprising set of answers.
Cautious aggression
Cody Alexander is a former Baylor defensive graduate assistant and the current secondary coach at Midlothian High School in Texas. He has a great website about defensive scheme called MatchQuarters.com. Alexander has also written a book, “Cautious Aggression: Defending Modern Football,” which is how I discovered his defensive philosophies. If you think a high school secondary coach doesn’t have a thing or two to teach NFL defensive coordinators, you should read Alexander’s book and think about how dogmatic some NFL defensive coordinators can be.
Both at the high school level and when he was working at Baylor, Alexander had to learn how to defend spread passing games as a point of survival, and he learned how far behind the NFL was in comparison to high school and college offenses when it came to defending new-school formations and concepts.
“If you look at where most of the younger coaches are in the NFL, they’re on the offensive side of the ball,” Alexander told me. “I think you sort of call what you know, and you’re only really now seeing that everybody in the NFL is going to some sort of spread package. It’s a lot of bunch sets, a lot of stack sets, a lot of motion across the field. And the reason they’re doing that is because of man coverage. Once Tampa-2 was dead, let’s go back to man coverage.
“When I was at Baylor, I went and visited the Broncos, and I was talking to Jack Del Rio and John Fox about Robert Griffin III, who was with Washington at the time. And they were wondering, what are we going to do about the zone read? And I’m thinking to myself, this is like Day 1 install — these are simple option rules. I think there’s a little bit of a disconnect with some of the older NFL establishment, especially on the defensive side — it’s like, this is how we’ve always done it, and we’re going to match up. What you’re seeing with the hybridization of NFL defenders, it’s just about impossible to play man coverage on every down.”
Broncos head coach John Fox and defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio, 2013 (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)
Alexander believes that match coverage can solve a lot of problems for NFL defenses, and it’s interesting to hear how he defines it — especially in the context of Match Quarters coverage.
“Match Quarters is really — Nick Saban made it popular with his Rip/Liz, and all it really is, is a man match. Tampa 2 is called more of a ‘country zone,’ meaning that you’re going to get to a spot. Where match comes in is that it mixes zone and man together—it’s more of an ‘if-then’ defense rather than ‘this is where I’m always going to go, no matter what.’ So, it gives you the element of man, but you have rules, and it counteracts a lot of the stuff offenses do to defeat man, which is motion, stacks, bunches, quick high-low routes and things like that.”
As opposed to a lot of NFL defensive concepts, which Alexander calls “homogeneous.”
“One you’re in the NFL, you’re in for life,” he said. “It’s one of those deals. It’s very hard to get in, and it’s very hard to get out. Mike Leach has said multiple times that the NFL is so boring because everybody is running the same three or four schemes. So, you’re getting the same looks, week in and week out. So, when you throw in a guy like McVay or Shanahan, who people forget went and met with Art Briles when Washington got RGIII, you get guys who are starting to use this. Andy Reid and Doug Pederson are starting to use a lower-level type of play — now, you start forcing these man defenses to think and adjust when they’ve never had to.”
Match Quarters with a “MOD” (Man-on-Demand) coverage rule. (Cody Alexander, MatchCoverage.Com)
And this all raises the question: With so many great offensive minds coming from either the staffs of NFL teams or the college ranks, where is the next great next defensive mind? Where is the coach who can bring a new philosophy to bring balance back to a league very much in transition?
“I think Texas defensive coordinator] Todd Orlando does a great job,” Alexander said. “[Georgia head coach] Kirby Smart and Nick Saban do great jobs. People think Nick Saban runs, like, man and Cover-1 and Cover-3, but he really doesn’t. The more he sees spread offenses, the more Alabama’s in two-high. But I think in the NFL, defense is so much more an old man’s game. Offense is more of a young man’s game.
“Look at all these young coaches who are getting head coaching jobs because they’re offensive guys. Defense is a weird thing — it takes longer to work through everything and decide what you want to do. But I do think the NFL is going to have to get some of these younger guys—from my generation or the ‘tweener generation that grew up before me — the guys who grew up coaching against the spread. They defended it in college. Now, they’re seeing it in the NFL.”
University of Alabama head coach Nick Saban (left) and University of Georgia head coach Kirby Smart stand with the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy.
But can you make match coverage your base defensive idea, or should it be more selectively used? Alexander told me that it depends how deep you want to go with the system.
“Guys that switch from Cover-2 to Cover-4 to Rip/Liz to what we call ‘Sky,’ which is Quarters, and then you go to a 2 Read … you just keep changing it. You add little tweaks of how you defend 3×1 … it keeps offenses guessing. They don’t know if they’re going to get Cover-2 or Quarters in this situation. What I do is … every time you line up against us, my secondary is going to look the exact same. You will not know, pre-snap, what we’re doing. And against that, what do offenses do? They start running simpler stuff.”
This is a constraint many Big 12 defenses have taken to, given the necessity to counter many of the most explosive offenses in the NCAA. Many NFL defenses follow receivers in motion and generally give up whether they’re playing man or zone coverage in their reactions to motion. As Alexander said, many Big 12 defenses are more into communication along the defense, and shifting coverage assignments against receivers in motion, than they are into following skill players wherever they go pre-snap. In this instance, what looks like passive coverage is actually a way to be ahead of the game.
The variations of coverage are something that you see in the NFL, to be sure, and there are teams running different iterations of match at the professional level now. The Patriots, Titans and Ravens have shown it to great effect over the last few seasons, and the Broncos and Seahawks have made some excellent adjustments in the 2018 season that we’ll detail in Part 3 of this series.
And in that context, can an NFL defense run match coverage as its base and default strategy, or is it more of a selective sub-package thing? Riddick told me that not only can it be a base construct, but if NFL defenses don’t start using match coverage more often, they’ll continue to be left behind.
“Unless coaches start emphasizing being more aggressive as far as zone pattern-matching, they have no shot to slow down these offenses. The next evolution that needs to take place in this league is that defensive coaches had better start getting together and having some summits and re-emphasizing some of the things we used to do back in the day that do still work, even in today’s NFL against today’s offenses.”
But as Riddick also explained, advanced match coverage isn’t something you want to go to midseason half-cocked without working it into your playbook during OTAs and training camp. It has to be a key part of what you want to do as a defense.
“You have to practice it because it requires communication between the second- and third-level defenders. I don’t know if a lot of teams really believe it and really work it to that degree. If you’re going to call Cover-3 and attach a match principle to it — a lot of teams try to do that now, but it breaks down if you’re not calling it across the field. Really, Cover-4 is the best way to [match]. This is where you can really marry to the receivers once you know what the route combinations are going to be. In passing downs, when you’re not dropping an eighth defender in the box, that’s where it really works.”
Meet the New Boss: Making the switch to match coverage
OK, let’s say you’re an NFL defensive coordinator, and you’re getting your lunch eaten by offenses over and over because your antiquated static concepts are not working. You’ve decided to switch to more match coverage.
Now, you have to drill it with your players, make sure they know their communications and assignments, and be patient as they adjust. While Riddick believes that it’s not something you can just throw as NFL veterans overnight, Alexander believes there are elements that can be drilled in through a shorter time period.
“One of the most popular coverages on third down in the NFL is two-man. You’ve got two-deep and man behind it. The issue with that at the lower levels is mobile quarterbacks. And as the dinosaurs of the quarterbacks start dying off … I mean, in the NFL, if you don’t run the zone read, if you’re not Cam Newton or Russell Wilson, people are like, ‘Oh, they’re not running quarterbacks.’ So, they get this idea that these guys are statues, but the problem with two-man is if you have a quarterback who runs at all, you’re dead in the water. Because the quarterback can just move. He can get the first down with five or 10 yards, or whatever he needs to, because you don’t have anybody for him. And that’s one of the biggest things — the NFL doesn’t have anybody for the quarterback.
“But in terms of how we do it at the high school level, you have to simplify things, and you have to have answers. I can’t say, ‘I have only one good cornerback, but they have two good receivers — how can we do it?’ Well, you can use bracket coverage — you can use match concepts to get brackets on their top receivers. And, it has built-in rules that kids can understand.”
In Part 1 of “The Match Game,” I asked Riddick to analyze the two touchdown passes from Dallas’ Dak Prescott to Cole Beasley against the Jaguars in Week 4. Riddick was unimpressed with Jacksonville’s passive defense, so I asked him how the Jags should have defended these two plays with match rules.
If you’re playing Cover-3 … the outside guys? They’re out of it. They’re basically playing man-to-man, which they’re doing here. You don’t match patterns hard in Cover-3 like you do in Cover-4, but this is how I would do it. Starting down at the bottom — as [No. 50, linebacker] Telvin Smith is taking Zeke [No. 21, running back Ezekiel Elliott] out here into the flat, he’s basically matching him up. Then, [No. 39] safety Tashaun Gipson should be screaming at [No. 44, linebacker] Myles Jack — here [No. 11, Beasley] comes. As soon as the receiver breaks to the opposite hash, Jack should be jumping him. You’re playing him man-to-man. You’re passing him off, but you’re playing him man-to-man. That’s a two-on-one right there. Gipson should also get a hit on the tight end running up the seam and carry him until the deep safety [No. 42, Barry Church] feels him. Then Church is going to jump him, coming down on the tight end, instead of just drifting into the bleeping end zone and covering nothing like he does here. Church is going to flat-foot this a little more to gain depth — as Nick Saban would say, you’re going to ‘flat-foot read it.’ Church is picking Beasley up man-to-man at about the five-yard line.
Everything should be locked down here. Telvin should jump Zeke, [No. 20, cornerback] Jalen [Ramsey] has [No. 13, receiver] Michael Gallup at the bottom of the screen, Myles should be jumping Cole Beasley, and the free safety [Church] is coming hard down on the tight end. That’s how you would match this up as the routes declare. And it really should become that down here in the red area, because there’s no sense in you covering nobody. You don’t have time to go to a spot, square up, look at the quarterback and break on the ball. The ball’s already been thrown, and it’s a touchdown. That’s how I would distribute that route.
“The collisions and the reroutes underneath are just gross, because they don’t exist. Coverage is all about leverage, and when you’re playing split-safety coverage like this, you have to play disciplined with leverage. These seam-droppers in Cover 2 are going to close off the inside breaking stuff. Telvin and Patmon are going to close that off. The safeties in Red 2 have to sit outside. They’re outside of the second read, inside the first read. And that’s what they’re looking for. Anything outside breaking by 2 [the second-read receiver], I’m helping on. Anything inside breaking by 1 [the third-read receiver], I’m helping on. By body position, I’m there. And Myles is closing off 3 [the third-read receiver] at the seam.
“If Jack gets singled up and he has to make a play, then he has to make a play. This is why you’ve had the Derrick Brooks-style playmakers [at inside linebacker] when you’re playing Cover-2. Because you were leaving them alone, and they were playing man-to-man on these tight ends down the middle of the field. This is why you have to have athletic coverage ‘backers to play this scheme, because the middle ‘backer can get exposed like this. But that’s what Myles is supposed to be, so it’s cool. It’s the safeties and the seam-droppers who don’t do anything at all with their re-routes. These receivers have to feel like it’s 7-on-7.”
I hypothesized to Riddick that match coverage is basically the defensive version of the option route – -that it allows defenders to act offensively as opposed to passively in an offense-driven league.
“Let’s say that it is the antidote to the option route. If you’re just going to run away from where you think I’m spot-dropping, I’m not going to let you just run away from me. As you think you’re running away from me … you thought I was just sitting here dropping to a spot? No. You’ve declared your route against my coverage, and now, I’ve got you. It’s the antidote as long as you have coaches who can teach it, and you make sure the reads and the rules are very clear as to — this is when you buy it [match with the receiver]. This is now when it’s become yours. And if there’s a gray area, you can’t do it. It won’t work. It has to be taught very precisely, and the players have o be able to execute it very precisely. It will work — it’s been proven to work.”
It has been proven to work – -in the past, and today. In Part 3 of “The Match Game,” we’ll look at some examples of modern match coverage in the NFL, and see how the entire league can superimpose the concept over its current problematic coverages.
The Match Game, Part 1: How NFL defenses lost their way
In this three-part series, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar takes a deep dive into how NFL defenses have lost the figurative arms race — and what defensive coaches can do to recover. In the…
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The Match Game, Part 1: How NFL defenses lost their way
Doug Farrar
November 6, 2018 11:32 pm ET
In this three-part series, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar takes a deep dive into how NFL defenses have lost the figurative arms race — and what defensive coaches can do to recover. In the first installment, Doug gets help from Matt Bowen and Louis Riddick, ESPN analysts and former NFL defensive backs, to discuss how offenses are playing in the new millennium … and defenses are definitely not keeping up.
It’s a problem of schematic imbalance.
In the constant struggle NFL defenses face against the passing game in 2018, this play drove me the most nuts. With 12 seconds left in the Week 4 Bengals-Falcons matchup, Atlanta had a 36-31 lead and Cincinnati had the ball at the Falcons’ 13-yard line. The Bengals had top receiver A.J. Green (No. 18) matched up on rookie cornerback Isaiah Oliver (No. 20), and at the snap, Oliver took a split second to watch running back Mark Walton run a route out of the backfield. That’s all it took for Green to run his route through Atlanta’s depleted secondary for an easy game-winning touchdown.
Why, you may ask, were the Falcons running a passive two-deep coverage in the red zone? On the play before, Oliver locked up on receiver Alex Erickson (No. 12) to the same side, and that resulted in an incompletion. There were two deep safeties, but Oliver followed his receiver all the way through the route with no distraction — in part because Walton ran a release route up the middle.
The Falcons became the first team since the 1966 Giants to lose two straight games while scoring 36 or more points — they had lost 43-37 to the Saints in overtime the week before — but that’s not the focus of this article. The focus here is the message implicit in those two plays: Modern offenses are adapting constantly, and modern defenses are not. That, above all else, is why offenses are on such a torrid pace right now.
Visionaries vs. dinosaurs
No offense is working at a more torrid pace than Kansas City’s, led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes. And that is no mistake — head coach Andy Reid has been assembling a coaching staff and roster to take the league apart for years. While other NFL coaches have derided college offenses as gimmick-laden entities that will not consistently work at the professional level, Reid hired former Vikings head coach Brad Childress as a “spread game analyst,” hired former Nevada head coach Chris Ault as a consultant, and unleashed a ton of spread passing concepts with Alex Smith, who ran option stuff under Urban Meyer at Utah. Mahomes, coming from Texas Tech’s wide-open offense, was the perfect QB for what Reid had been setting up for years.
And now, more and more NFL offenses are beating NFL defenses to death with expansive formations and concepts, the minds behind those defenses are struggling mightily to keep pace.
Matt Bowen, the co-host of ESPN’s “NFL Matchup” show, played safety for the Rams, Packers, Washington and Bills from 2000 through 2006. Twelve years after he left the NFL, and in an era where he’s studied as much defensive tape as anyone else in the business, Bowen looks at plays like Green’s touchdown and is aghast at how far offenses have stretched ahead of defenses at the highest level of football.
The reason? According to Bowen, it’s a lack of forward thinking — a lot of defenses are playing the same schemes they would have 10 to 15 years ago, when offenses were nowhere near as complex as they are now.
“The thing I’m noticing is that teams are playing a lot of static Cover-3,” Bowen told me; he wrote a great primer about Cover-3 here. “When you do that, you’re putting yourself in a very adverse situation as a defense. There are natural windows to attack Cover-3. I think it’s a major problem. I’m tired of seeing Cover-3. I’m tired of seeing teams get beat down the middle of the field. There are too many open windows on the field. A lot of teams are playing more zone coverages, and that’s fine, but how are you doing it? Whether you’re playing three-deep or two-deep, and I think a lot of teams are playing more zone coverages. I have no problem with zone coverages, but are you matching to players?”
Regarding the play in question, Bowen said that the Cover-2 scheme the Falcons were playing against the Bengals was just as ill-suited, especially when Oliver gambled on going with Green instead of defending the flat as he should have.
“A.J. Green was in a minus split here, and if you’re the cornerback in that Cover-2, you need to get back and protect the play. I don’t care if you’re a rookie. You’re in a game-winning situation, and you’re playing Cover-2. As an offensive coordinator, that’s what you beg for. And now, you have the perfect route called for it. Here, [Oliver] has to go to the flat, and you’re putting the safety in a terrible position. For that safety to make that play, he’s got to guess on the route. He played it the right way and went to the receiver, You’re breaking at a 45-degree angle, but you need your cornerback to sink and take that away. The defensive philosophy here is, we’re going to protect the end zone. You throw it underneath, that’s fine — we’re going to tackle. But to get to that point, you have to protect the end zone first.”
There’s less margin for error with static coverage. In the early 2010s, the Seahawks were able to play predominantly Cover-1 and Cover-3 defenses in which two outside cornerbacks matched up against receivers, and a single deep safety took the back third of the field. But for most teams, and even a few years later when offenses have learned new tricks, static coverage is no longer feasible.
The Vikings found their own version of Cover-3 regret against the Rams in a 38-31 Week 4 loss.
Losing the numbers game
Here, out of a three-tight-end set, the Rams spread the field pre-snap after looking at first like they’re going with a power formation. You can see the defensive confusion as the Vikings try to get aligned — and worst of all for Mike Zimmer’s team, wide receiver Robert Woods (No. 17) found himself covered by linebacker Anthony Barr (No. 55). The best modern offensive coordinators look to handicap defenses with pre-snap motion, and against a relatively static defense, this is what happens when a coaching genius like Sean McVay pulls out all the stops — an easy 31-yard touchdown pass.
McVay also loves to stress defenses out of tight — or “minus” — splits, in which the pre-snap formation shows no intent of the play to come. It’s a static pre-snap offense with all kinds of post-snap possibilities, and when it comes up against a defense playing coverage as if in a bygone era, bad things are bound to happen.
“Granted, they came out with a three-tight-end set and adjusted, but still, Minnesota was in Cover-3,” Bowen said of this play. “Now, this was Sean McVay calling the right personnel, and he got them on that one. And that’s OK. It happens.
“But I’m seeing really poor communication by secondaries. And that happens a lot against a McVay offense, against a [Kyle] Shanahan offense. What happens is that you have these minus splits where everyone’s inside the numbers. And there’s some sort of play-action, whether it’s the downhill run or jet [sweep motion], trying to get those linebackers to move up. If you’re playing zone coverage behind that, you’re going to create voids in the coverage all day long.”
As Bowen concluded, it’s not just that offenses are adding different things to older schemes — it’s that they’re throwing an entirely new structure out there.
“It’s a combination of schematics and the way the game is played right now. When you mesh those together, you have these explosive passing offenses. It’s also what I call the adaptation to the modern pro-style offense. Right now, that means the quick passing game at the top of the call sheet, vertical throws that are more inside the numbers, play-action, and RPOs (run-pass option plays). It’s on defenses to try and take that stuff away, which requires a lot of eye discipline, a lot of technique and a lot of coverage that matches to receivers. [If] you get into a zone drop at 10 to 12 yards, it isn’t good enough anymore.”
Lost in the red zone
Even ostensibly great defenses fall victim to static coverage nightmares, and they do it against broken and inconsistent offenses. The Jaguars found this out in their 40-7 Week 6 loss to the Cowboys, when 5-foot-8 slot receiver Cole Beasley caught two touchdown passes from Dak Prescott and seemed to have the cheat code to a defense that, before the season began, was touted as perhaps the league’s best.
I’ve detailed those two touchdowns before, but I wanted to do a deeper dive with Louis Riddick, the ESPN analyst and former safety for the 49ers, Falcons, Browns and Raiders from 1991-1998. Riddick’s time with the Browns from 1993-1994 was especially instructive because his head coach was Bill Belichick and his defensive coordinator was Nick Saban.
How did the Cowboys offense, which would have been better off locked in a shed against the Titans on Monday night, pull this off? Well, they had a lot of help.
The first Beasley score came with 9:28 left in the first half, and you can see wide receiver Allen Hurns (No. 17) motion side to the left side of the field. Cornerback Jalen Ramsey (No. 20) takes Hurns outside, while cornerback Tyler Patmon (No. 23) appears to take responsibility for Beasley (No. 11), who will run a simple crossing pattern from the left slot. But at the snap, both Patmon and safety Tashaun Gipson (No. 38) hold up in coverage, and Beasley runs right through.
Riddick was not impressed by this defensive call.
“The fact that they take Allen Hurns up top to stretch the formation doesn’t really matter. The work here is really being done by Cole, [No. 13, receiver Michael] Gallup, and the tight end at the top of the screen [No. 87, Geoff Swaim]. This is Cover-3 — it’s just 3-Lock, is what it is. You’re playing man-to-man outside, and you have curl/flat, hook/curl, hook/curl, curl/flat across the formation. But [No. 44, linebacker] Myles Jack is messing this up. He’s playing this like it’s Cover-2, and he’s a middle-read 3 player. He’s carrying 3 [the third-read receiver] down the pipe like it’s Cover-2. He busted the call. What he should be doing is sitting right where Cole just caught that ball. He should be sitting there at the 10-yard line either picking it, or Dak is holding the ball [because Beasley is covered]. Now, Dak would probably go outside to Gallup because Jalen Ramsey is stumbling all over the place, but Jack messes this up.
“But if you’re going to play 3-Lock out here, why are they playing off-man in the red area? When your cornerbacks are best at jamming, rerouting and playing aggressively? If Gallup runs a hard curl right there, it’s a first down. Once again, this is just terrible coaching.”
The Jags went with Cover-2 on the second touchdown, with no better results. This time, receiver Gallup splits wide pre-snap, and cornerback A.J. Bouye (No. 21) takes Gallup. Patmon is the slot defender again, and he takes a basic hook coverage to the goal line. This time, the Jaguars are playing two deep safeties, and safety Barry Church (No. 42) takes Beasley into the end zone. In red zone version of this defense, the outside cornerbacks take the outside receivers to the boundary to guard the fade route, the safeties generally sit on routes in their areas, and the slot defender will take the seam/hook responsibility. He must watch the slot defender and adjust to his route, which the Jaguars didn’t do here.
“They’re rushing two and dropping nine,” Riddick said. “And let’s just take the two defensive tackles out of it. The Jaguars are playing a form of Red 2 (a goal-line Cover-2 defense), in which Jack is taking the third read up the seam. The safety’s sitting on Beasley’s outside shoulder, and Patmon is sitting on the inside shoulder. So, Patmon should be wheeling in on that little turn in right there [the inside part of the pivot route]. He should actually look Cole up that route and shut it off. Church should be sitting outside for the pivot like he is. Church should let that come right to him because the throwing lanes are all cut off, anyway.
“Now, at the bottom of the screen? Same thing. One, [No. 50, linebacker] Telvin Smith should hit the (expletive) out of Allen Hurns here. He should jam him at the five-yard line. It’s like he’s avoiding him! He should ‘collision’ Hurns, wheel with him, and sit outside on him as well. They play this OK on the bottom of the screen, but I don’t understand why this is uncontested. Why is everything uncontested? The only guy who’s touching anybody is A.J. Bouye up top. And he’s doing it — not because he’s really trying to, but because he’s there.
“If [No. 97, defensive tackle] Malik Jackson is dropping into coverage, why isn’t he trying to hit [No. 80, tight end Rico] Gathers right there? At the snap, why is Patmon even backing up? Why is Barry Church backing up four-and-a-half yards in the end zone? Why don’t you sit there about a yard deep and just wait? Just SIT THERE! (Riddick’s voice has increased in both volume and contempt all the way through this particular play.)
“This just pisses me off. I watch it every week, and I’m thinking, this is just too easy. The only thing Beasley’s doing here is, he’s running away from where everybody is. You guys are all gonna go in here? OK — I’m going to go out here. And you don’t want to touch me? OK, perfect.”
I asked Riddick to write the foreword to my recent book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football. In that foreword, he had an interesting tidbit about his time with Belichick and Saban in Cleveland that will take us to Part 2 of “The Match Game.” Cleveland’s coaches had an absolute need to respond to the explosive offenses of the time, and they combined man and zone coverage in a very interesting fashion.
In Part 2 of “The Match Game,” we’ll look at how a return to these types of coverage might save football from getting out of hand all over again, and introduce you to a high school secondary coach who has his own set of fascinating answers.
The Match Game, Part 2: How Nick Saban reimagined defensive coverage
Doug Farrar
November 8, 2018 10:00 am ET
In this three-part series, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar takes a deep dive into how NFL defenses have lost the figurative arms race – and what defensive coaches can do to recover. Part 1 revealed the liabilities in current NFL defensive philosophies. In Part 2, we take a closer look at the coverage that could bring balance back to NFL defenses – with the help of two former NFL defensive backs and a high school secondary coach who has his own set of answers.
Saban’s realization: The origins of match coverage
It was the early 1990s in Cleveland, and Browns defensive coordinator Nick Saban had a serious problem: He could not figure out how to beat the Steelers, and their array of receivers running complementary deep routes. Not that the Steelers of the time would have rivaled the Greatest Show on Turf, but four receivers against three defensive backs was an obvious mathematical disadvantage. And it showed up whether Saban called man or zone coverage.
“This started with the Cleveland Browns,” Saban said at a 2010 Mississippi coaching clinic, via ElevenWarriors.com. “I was the defensive coordinator in the early 90s and Pittsburgh would run ‘Seattle’ on us — four streaks. Then they would run two streaks and two out routes, what I call ‘pole’ route from 2×2. We got to where could not play 3-deep zone because we rerouted the seams and played zone, and what I call ‘Country Cover-3’ (drop to your spot, reroute the seams, break on the ball). Well, when [Dan] Marino is throwing it, that old break-on-the-ball [expletive] don’t work.
“So, because we could not defend this, we could not play three-deep. When you can’t play zone, what do you do next? You play man (Cover-1), but if their [players] are better than your [players], you can’t play Cover-1. We got to where we couldn’t run Cover-1. So now we can’t play an eight-man front.
As Saban pointed out, the 1994 Browns lost five games, and three of them (twice in the regular season, once in the playoffs) were to Pittsburgh. And when Saban tried to move from Cover-3 to Cover-1 (a single deep safety with man coverage outside), the same issues arose. As he said, “If their [players] are better than your [players], you can’t play Cover-1.”
And so, the Browns couldn’t present eight-man fronts against Pittsburgh’s power running game. Something had to be done. What did Saban do? He combined zone and man coverage, and came up with the pattern-matching concept.
“We came up with this concept — how we can play Cover-1 and Cover-3 at the same time, so we can do both these things and one thing would complement the other,” Saban said. “We came up with the concept ‘Rip/Liz match.'”
(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Put simply, basic pattern-matching has a defender playing zone through the first part of a route. Then, as the receiver makes a move to affect the stem of the route, the defender switches to man coverage. It gives defenders and their coaches added flexibility to take receivers upfield. In combination coverages, pattern-matching also allows defenses to affect multi-receiver sets to either side, as you see in the NFL’s current spread concepts. The “Rip/Liz” language simply tells the defense which side is the dominant alignment—“Rip” for right, “Liz” for left.
ESPN analyst and former NFL defensive back Louis Riddick, who broke down two plays in Part 1 of “The Match Game,” played for Saban and head coach Bill Belichick in Cleveland in 1993 and 1994, and he was introduced to pattern-matching from the first day he hit the Browns facility. Saban and Belichick had already dialed it up by that time.
“Pattern-matching was always a part of what the safeties and cornerbacks did,” Riddick told me. “If we called it Cover-4 (four-deep, man-based coverage), there were very specific reads for us when routes got into that 10- to 12-yard area. The coverage turned from zone to man. You ‘buy’ a route based on which way the receiver went — whether they broke to your left or your right, and where your help would be coming from. It always started off as a zone call, but once they got into your specific area, the specific depth you needed them to get to, it quickly turned to man.
“It’s what Nick and Bill had talked about — there was no way you could play spot drop coverage when the receivers had options as far as ‘we’re just going to go where you’re not.’ Once the receivers got down the field, it had to turn into man. It was what I learned, and it made sense.”
(Cody Alexander, MatchQuarters.Com)
And if it made sense then, it certainly makes sense now, when receiver formations and route calls are so much more advanced. In addition, the complexity of option routes, in which receivers decide their tail ends of their routes depending on the actions of the defenders covering them, makes traditional spot drop coverage all the more difficult to maintain.
Like Riddick, Matt Bowen is an ESPN analyst who played defensive back in the NFL. As a co-host on the network’s “NFL Matchup” show, Bowen watches as much tape now as he did in his playing days. Bowen also coaches at the high school level, so he’s got a great eye into all levels of the game. And like Riddick, Bowen is surprised that NFL teams aren’t using more match coverage against modern offenses. Especially when offenses run plays at a hyperactive tempo and defenses are more stressed than ever.
“Defenses are caught right now where they just want to get alignment and assignment. And when you’re just playing alignment and assignment football, I don’t think it’s good enough anymore. And that’s where you say, “OK — my guys can line up, and they can adjust.’ That’s it. And that’s great, if you’re in OTAs. But in the game, from a defensive perspective, what’s your disguise? How are you going to set the tempo for the offense? When a defense dictates the tempo, they take over the game.”
So, how does pattern-matching make a difference? I reached out to another high school coach for a surprising set of answers.
Cautious aggression
Cody Alexander is a former Baylor defensive graduate assistant and the current secondary coach at Midlothian High School in Texas. He has a great website about defensive scheme called MatchQuarters.com. Alexander has also written a book, “Cautious Aggression: Defending Modern Football,” which is how I discovered his defensive philosophies. If you think a high school secondary coach doesn’t have a thing or two to teach NFL defensive coordinators, you should read Alexander’s book and think about how dogmatic some NFL defensive coordinators can be.
Both at the high school level and when he was working at Baylor, Alexander had to learn how to defend spread passing games as a point of survival, and he learned how far behind the NFL was in comparison to high school and college offenses when it came to defending new-school formations and concepts.
“If you look at where most of the younger coaches are in the NFL, they’re on the offensive side of the ball,” Alexander told me. “I think you sort of call what you know, and you’re only really now seeing that everybody in the NFL is going to some sort of spread package. It’s a lot of bunch sets, a lot of stack sets, a lot of motion across the field. And the reason they’re doing that is because of man coverage. Once Tampa-2 was dead, let’s go back to man coverage.
“When I was at Baylor, I went and visited the Broncos, and I was talking to Jack Del Rio and John Fox about Robert Griffin III, who was with Washington at the time. And they were wondering, what are we going to do about the zone read? And I’m thinking to myself, this is like Day 1 install — these are simple option rules. I think there’s a little bit of a disconnect with some of the older NFL establishment, especially on the defensive side — it’s like, this is how we’ve always done it, and we’re going to match up. What you’re seeing with the hybridization of NFL defenders, it’s just about impossible to play man coverage on every down.”
Broncos head coach John Fox and defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio, 2013 (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)
Alexander believes that match coverage can solve a lot of problems for NFL defenses, and it’s interesting to hear how he defines it — especially in the context of Match Quarters coverage.
“Match Quarters is really — Nick Saban made it popular with his Rip/Liz, and all it really is, is a man match. Tampa 2 is called more of a ‘country zone,’ meaning that you’re going to get to a spot. Where match comes in is that it mixes zone and man together—it’s more of an ‘if-then’ defense rather than ‘this is where I’m always going to go, no matter what.’ So, it gives you the element of man, but you have rules, and it counteracts a lot of the stuff offenses do to defeat man, which is motion, stacks, bunches, quick high-low routes and things like that.”
As opposed to a lot of NFL defensive concepts, which Alexander calls “homogeneous.”
“One you’re in the NFL, you’re in for life,” he said. “It’s one of those deals. It’s very hard to get in, and it’s very hard to get out. Mike Leach has said multiple times that the NFL is so boring because everybody is running the same three or four schemes. So, you’re getting the same looks, week in and week out. So, when you throw in a guy like McVay or Shanahan, who people forget went and met with Art Briles when Washington got RGIII, you get guys who are starting to use this. Andy Reid and Doug Pederson are starting to use a lower-level type of play — now, you start forcing these man defenses to think and adjust when they’ve never had to.”
Match Quarters with a “MOD” (Man-on-Demand) coverage rule. (Cody Alexander, MatchCoverage.Com)
And this all raises the question: With so many great offensive minds coming from either the staffs of NFL teams or the college ranks, where is the next great next defensive mind? Where is the coach who can bring a new philosophy to bring balance back to a league very much in transition?
“I think Texas defensive coordinator] Todd Orlando does a great job,” Alexander said. “[Georgia head coach] Kirby Smart and Nick Saban do great jobs. People think Nick Saban runs, like, man and Cover-1 and Cover-3, but he really doesn’t. The more he sees spread offenses, the more Alabama’s in two-high. But I think in the NFL, defense is so much more an old man’s game. Offense is more of a young man’s game.
“Look at all these young coaches who are getting head coaching jobs because they’re offensive guys. Defense is a weird thing — it takes longer to work through everything and decide what you want to do. But I do think the NFL is going to have to get some of these younger guys—from my generation or the ‘tweener generation that grew up before me — the guys who grew up coaching against the spread. They defended it in college. Now, they’re seeing it in the NFL.”
University of Alabama head coach Nick Saban (left) and University of Georgia head coach Kirby Smart stand with the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy.
But can you make match coverage your base defensive idea, or should it be more selectively used? Alexander told me that it depends how deep you want to go with the system.
“Guys that switch from Cover-2 to Cover-4 to Rip/Liz to what we call ‘Sky,’ which is Quarters, and then you go to a 2 Read … you just keep changing it. You add little tweaks of how you defend 3×1 … it keeps offenses guessing. They don’t know if they’re going to get Cover-2 or Quarters in this situation. What I do is … every time you line up against us, my secondary is going to look the exact same. You will not know, pre-snap, what we’re doing. And against that, what do offenses do? They start running simpler stuff.”
This is a constraint many Big 12 defenses have taken to, given the necessity to counter many of the most explosive offenses in the NCAA. Many NFL defenses follow receivers in motion and generally give up whether they’re playing man or zone coverage in their reactions to motion. As Alexander said, many Big 12 defenses are more into communication along the defense, and shifting coverage assignments against receivers in motion, than they are into following skill players wherever they go pre-snap. In this instance, what looks like passive coverage is actually a way to be ahead of the game.
The variations of coverage are something that you see in the NFL, to be sure, and there are teams running different iterations of match at the professional level now. The Patriots, Titans and Ravens have shown it to great effect over the last few seasons, and the Broncos and Seahawks have made some excellent adjustments in the 2018 season that we’ll detail in Part 3 of this series.
And in that context, can an NFL defense run match coverage as its base and default strategy, or is it more of a selective sub-package thing? Riddick told me that not only can it be a base construct, but if NFL defenses don’t start using match coverage more often, they’ll continue to be left behind.
“Unless coaches start emphasizing being more aggressive as far as zone pattern-matching, they have no shot to slow down these offenses. The next evolution that needs to take place in this league is that defensive coaches had better start getting together and having some summits and re-emphasizing some of the things we used to do back in the day that do still work, even in today’s NFL against today’s offenses.”
But as Riddick also explained, advanced match coverage isn’t something you want to go to midseason half-cocked without working it into your playbook during OTAs and training camp. It has to be a key part of what you want to do as a defense.
“You have to practice it because it requires communication between the second- and third-level defenders. I don’t know if a lot of teams really believe it and really work it to that degree. If you’re going to call Cover-3 and attach a match principle to it — a lot of teams try to do that now, but it breaks down if you’re not calling it across the field. Really, Cover-4 is the best way to [match]. This is where you can really marry to the receivers once you know what the route combinations are going to be. In passing downs, when you’re not dropping an eighth defender in the box, that’s where it really works.”
Meet the New Boss: Making the switch to match coverage
OK, let’s say you’re an NFL defensive coordinator, and you’re getting your lunch eaten by offenses over and over because your antiquated static concepts are not working. You’ve decided to switch to more match coverage.
Now, you have to drill it with your players, make sure they know their communications and assignments, and be patient as they adjust. While Riddick believes that it’s not something you can just throw as NFL veterans overnight, Alexander believes there are elements that can be drilled in through a shorter time period.
“One of the most popular coverages on third down in the NFL is two-man. You’ve got two-deep and man behind it. The issue with that at the lower levels is mobile quarterbacks. And as the dinosaurs of the quarterbacks start dying off … I mean, in the NFL, if you don’t run the zone read, if you’re not Cam Newton or Russell Wilson, people are like, ‘Oh, they’re not running quarterbacks.’ So, they get this idea that these guys are statues, but the problem with two-man is if you have a quarterback who runs at all, you’re dead in the water. Because the quarterback can just move. He can get the first down with five or 10 yards, or whatever he needs to, because you don’t have anybody for him. And that’s one of the biggest things — the NFL doesn’t have anybody for the quarterback.
“But in terms of how we do it at the high school level, you have to simplify things, and you have to have answers. I can’t say, ‘I have only one good cornerback, but they have two good receivers — how can we do it?’ Well, you can use bracket coverage — you can use match concepts to get brackets on their top receivers. And, it has built-in rules that kids can understand.”
In Part 1 of “The Match Game,” I asked Riddick to analyze the two touchdown passes from Dallas’ Dak Prescott to Cole Beasley against the Jaguars in Week 4. Riddick was unimpressed with Jacksonville’s passive defense, so I asked him how the Jags should have defended these two plays with match rules.
If you’re playing Cover-3 … the outside guys? They’re out of it. They’re basically playing man-to-man, which they’re doing here. You don’t match patterns hard in Cover-3 like you do in Cover-4, but this is how I would do it. Starting down at the bottom — as [No. 50, linebacker] Telvin Smith is taking Zeke [No. 21, running back Ezekiel Elliott] out here into the flat, he’s basically matching him up. Then, [No. 39] safety Tashaun Gipson should be screaming at [No. 44, linebacker] Myles Jack — here [No. 11, Beasley] comes. As soon as the receiver breaks to the opposite hash, Jack should be jumping him. You’re playing him man-to-man. You’re passing him off, but you’re playing him man-to-man. That’s a two-on-one right there. Gipson should also get a hit on the tight end running up the seam and carry him until the deep safety [No. 42, Barry Church] feels him. Then Church is going to jump him, coming down on the tight end, instead of just drifting into the bleeping end zone and covering nothing like he does here. Church is going to flat-foot this a little more to gain depth — as Nick Saban would say, you’re going to ‘flat-foot read it.’ Church is picking Beasley up man-to-man at about the five-yard line.
Everything should be locked down here. Telvin should jump Zeke, [No. 20, cornerback] Jalen [Ramsey] has [No. 13, receiver] Michael Gallup at the bottom of the screen, Myles should be jumping Cole Beasley, and the free safety [Church] is coming hard down on the tight end. That’s how you would match this up as the routes declare. And it really should become that down here in the red area, because there’s no sense in you covering nobody. You don’t have time to go to a spot, square up, look at the quarterback and break on the ball. The ball’s already been thrown, and it’s a touchdown. That’s how I would distribute that route.
“The collisions and the reroutes underneath are just gross, because they don’t exist. Coverage is all about leverage, and when you’re playing split-safety coverage like this, you have to play disciplined with leverage. These seam-droppers in Cover 2 are going to close off the inside breaking stuff. Telvin and Patmon are going to close that off. The safeties in Red 2 have to sit outside. They’re outside of the second read, inside the first read. And that’s what they’re looking for. Anything outside breaking by 2 [the second-read receiver], I’m helping on. Anything inside breaking by 1 [the third-read receiver], I’m helping on. By body position, I’m there. And Myles is closing off 3 [the third-read receiver] at the seam.
“If Jack gets singled up and he has to make a play, then he has to make a play. This is why you’ve had the Derrick Brooks-style playmakers [at inside linebacker] when you’re playing Cover-2. Because you were leaving them alone, and they were playing man-to-man on these tight ends down the middle of the field. This is why you have to have athletic coverage ‘backers to play this scheme, because the middle ‘backer can get exposed like this. But that’s what Myles is supposed to be, so it’s cool. It’s the safeties and the seam-droppers who don’t do anything at all with their re-routes. These receivers have to feel like it’s 7-on-7.”
I hypothesized to Riddick that match coverage is basically the defensive version of the option route – -that it allows defenders to act offensively as opposed to passively in an offense-driven league.
“Let’s say that it is the antidote to the option route. If you’re just going to run away from where you think I’m spot-dropping, I’m not going to let you just run away from me. As you think you’re running away from me … you thought I was just sitting here dropping to a spot? No. You’ve declared your route against my coverage, and now, I’ve got you. It’s the antidote as long as you have coaches who can teach it, and you make sure the reads and the rules are very clear as to — this is when you buy it [match with the receiver]. This is now when it’s become yours. And if there’s a gray area, you can’t do it. It won’t work. It has to be taught very precisely, and the players have o be able to execute it very precisely. It will work — it’s been proven to work.”
It has been proven to work – -in the past, and today. In Part 3 of “The Match Game,” we’ll look at some examples of modern match coverage in the NFL, and see how the entire league can superimpose the concept over its current problematic coverages.
