Coaching Football Defense, Defending 3x1 formations Part 1 Man coverages

 Defending 3x1 formation with man coverage Concepts 

3x1 pas concepts hav evolved in the NFL over the years. You see 3x1 bunch, 3x1 with three tight ends to a side and 3x1 out of 11 personnel. Only 2 teams in the NFL use 10 personnel more than 10 % of the time, the Bills at 17% and the Cardinals at 19%. 

What do you do as a defense. What do you try to take away? Do you play zone, man or combination coverage. Ive covered combo and zone coverage and now let's look at different ways to play man to man. 

One of the issues you see is the league has fallen in love with 11 personnel. 

In 2008, the league used 11 personnel 34% of the time. In 2020, that number has become 60% of the time. 

NFL teams are using different formations out of 11 and other personnel groupings which make it very difficult on defenses. Teams have adjusted as you see more nickel as base personnel with dime personnel on 3rd downs. You don't see too much traditional 3-4 and 4-3 times anymore vs those sets. 

So when you see 3x1 you will often see a tight end in that 3x1 strong formation or on the backside of 3x1. That has factored in to how teams defend it.

Lets look at the 3 variations you see

Man Coverages and concepts:

There are 3 basic man concepts:

A. cover 2man (3 or 4 man rush), cover 2 man with some type of robber variation(safety lurks and dives and plays the hole)

B. cover 1 with and without pressure out of nickel and dime 

C. cover 0 with pressure and with underneath defenders and 4 man pressures.

D. cover 1 bracket-Double the teams best wr

 2 man 

Down and Distance 3rd and 4. 

2 man hole(lurk concept)

Saints vs 49ers 

3rd and 4

The Saints are in a load front with 3 defensive lineman to one side. The Saints show 2 high but play 2 man hole and the lb blitz engages the rb. The safety opposite trips is looking for a crosser.

the safety is playing off #3 to the the strong side. 

3rd and 8 The Eagles go 2 man lurk vs the Seahawks.

The Hawks run 1 and 3 on 8 yard in routes and they hit #1 on the 8 yard in for the first down. The Eagles took away #3 with the hole defender but #1 was open.

Free safety drops to play the hole opposite the 3x1 side.

3rd and 10 vs Chargers

Really this is man free but the cb and fs weak make this really interesting. The pats put the safety on #1 if he goes across, which he does and leave the cb weak to play crossers. Really an interesting concept.

The Patriots send the CB down to play the crosser. The safety takes #1 and the CB passes the route off. He then plays the crosser coming back the other way.

They get the sack but the nice exchange between the CB and safety helps with the coverage.

Man free 5 man pressure- 4 -2 look with a lurk concept oppoisite 3x1

Bills bring 2 inside rushers and play man free with both DE peeling for the RB and tight end. Good design vs 3x1 and the jets passing game.

2 man lurk concept to the side of the 3x1

Steelers  run man free with using the free safety as a rat. They end up getting a huge interception for a pick 6. Great changeup by the Steelers and great read by the free safety.

Heres is the big 3rd and 6 vs the Bucs that the Rams sealed the game with. Bucs run 4 vests and Brady gets fooled as he sees the hole defender

Man free

Steelers run a game with the 2 ilb and nose, play man free out of dime. The safety has the rb now.

Man free with pressure odd front

Rams vs WFT 

Rams run a 4 man simulated pressure with man free. They use the defensive end as an underneath rat defender. They combo on the inside 2 wr.

Jets defense

The Jets play a man free concept with matching the #2 and #3 wr with the mike and the sam

front odd 3-2

pressure concept: overload concept to attack slide protection

In this situation the Jets anticipate a slide and put the RB in limbo with 2 rushers attacking him. One inside and one outside.  They actually send three LB's and the first one does a great job occupying the RB vs the Falcons 4 man slide. Great design and ability to take advantage of the RB. You can see the Mike and the safety playing #2 and 3 in the passing game. Safety has outside leverage and mike does a good job on the #3 wr. 

 Jets vs. Saints

#3Texans vs Browns

Texans bring 2 off the edge go man free. Browns man beater , condensed split x on the 9 route

Man free 5 man pressure- 4 -2 look with a lurk concept

Bills bring 2 inside rushers and play man free with both DE peeling for the RB and tight end. Good design vs 3x1 and the jets passing game.

Ravens vs Steelers

3rd and 5

Play crosser with a LB opposite.

Ravens run a great inside 5 man pressure with the lb blitz engaging late as a 6th rusher. But, they pull the de out to play the crosser. Ben almost throws a pick but pulls it down and gets it off.

 

Falcons vs. Saints

The falcons bring a nice 5 man pressures vs the Saints. The Saints try to hit the down and out but it is incomplete.

Man free without Pressure with 1 rat underneath defenders 1 on rb.

Ravens go man to man with 2 rat defenders, (underneath help), result inc pass

Everything covered no place to go with the ball. They wanted to hit the rb off the mesh concept, 

Coaching points: pick routes but the  Ravens are smart and just put the lb way outside. Look at the underneath rat defenders playing the crossing mesh routes on both sides. Great defense 

3 man rush man free  2 rat defenders and free safety

Patriots run this coverage concept vs the Chiefs on a few occasions. Andy Reid comes out and dictates coverage by putting Helaire out on the perimeter and motioning him back in.  Cover 1 so he runs the crossing route.  The Pats collision Kelce with a def lineman.

Andy Reid runs Hill on the crossing route but look how shallow it is. The depth of the route makes the safety question whether he should jump it or not. Really puts the safety in limbo. Hill usually runs much deeper crossing routes. The safety underneath is expecting help on the crosser. They hit it for 18 yards

Example #2 vs the Chiefs

Here is the collision concept as the Pats love to disrupt the under routes. 

You really see the emphasis of the patriots defense to not allow the first read. They collision both the back and Kelce in the #1 wr slot to the boundary. The Chiefs love to run mesh/pick routes for the back in this set. Patriots do a great job defending it. Also, you see the man single coverage with Hill. Good route design up top as the free safety has a long way to run.

Example #3 Rams vs Bucs

Man free with blitz engage principle 

Here the Steelers play man free with 2 lbs playing the rb and te. They blitz engage once they see their men block you fill add in.

 

Cover 0Man with 6 man pressure

Here the Patriots bring 6 as they overlap one side. The olb has peel rules if the rb releases.

Cover 0 with rat defenders underneath.  

Cardinals come out in 3x1 back weak. Here the Dolphins run the concept vs the Cardinals. They are playing straight man over the top with lb as rat defenders underneath. watch the olb drop into passing lanes. They get the good pressure. 

6 man pressures vs empty are usually double a mug or double b mug and go. Playing man or off man with all 5 wr. Defenses try to force a slide one way to free up the rush on the other side.

Syracuse runs a nice 5 man pressure with cover o and 2 rat defenders spying the back

Man free with bracket concept on the best wr. 

Super Bowl 2018

One of the things they did effectively was double team Robert Woods and play Brandin Cooks straight up. They played bracket coverage on at least 8 occasions in this game and played man on everybody else vs 3x1.

2nd and 9 

3-3 in the 4th quarter

They play man free and bracket Robert Woods 2 plays in a row.

The first they get an incompletion.

On 3rd and 9 they try to force it to Woods who is getting doubled vertically by the Free safety and the CB. Nice design as everyone is covered down field. The nice game inside gets home and forces a bad throw.

Here's the end zone view in which you can see the pressure getting home. Excellent job of scheming and running a nice 3 man game inside for the pressure.

Dime package 

3-2 inside game

Here's another example of them bracketing woods and playing straight up with everyone else.  They played this on numerous times and it was a major reason they were successful in the super bowl. 

Patriots play bracket coverage vs Robert Woods in the Super Bowl. They play man on everybody else with  free safety help. Nice design and concept from Coach Belichick.

This concept was evident on several occasions.

2nd and 9 

3-3 in the 4th quarter

They play man free and bracket Robert Woods 2 plays in a row.

The first they get an incompletion.

On 3rd and 9 they try to force it to Woods who is getting doubled vertically by the Free safety and the CB. Nice design as everyone is covered down field. The nice game inside gets home and forces a bad throw.

Here's the end zone view in which you can see the pressure getting home. Excellent job of scheming and running a nice 3 man game inside for the pressure.

Here are just some of the man coverages you see in the NFL. I hope you enjoyed this article.

Coaching Football Defense -Belichick and the Patriots defense vs The Cardinals.

I took some time to do a different post on the Cardinals vs Patriots and the game plan the Cards used to shut Murray down.

 Cardinals vs Patriots week 12 featured another good matchup of Belichick vs the very good offense of Murray and the Cardinals.

A few things that stood out. Lets look at the run game first.

1. On run downs the Patriots were content on having Drake beat them in the run game. They played their defensive ends extremely wide.  It forced the give to the back. They were more concerned with Murray as a runner and forced the give. Smart coaching. 

Murray was limited to 5 carries for 31 yards using this strategy.  They also brought pressure on medium downs which took the draw away. Good scheme by Coach Belichick and staff as they held the Cardinals to 300 total yards. Played mostly 4-2 with some odd mixed it. 

RUN GAME ANALYSIS

Heres an example of man free coverage on the outside with the inside lb playing combo on the tight end and ss and excellent run defense

When the cards go under center they decide to go cover 3

1st and 10 the Patriots go to an odd front with 4is, they still play the olb really wide and sit him for Murray forcing the give. They go 1/4, 1/4 , 1/2 to the trips. The olb does a great job squeezing as does the safety playing cut back  and the de does a nice job shedding the tackles block. Great team defense.

 

As you can see from the above examples they did an overall nice job keeping Drake contained and limiting Murray's carries.

PASS GAME ANALYSIS

In the passing game, again it was a simple yet effective gameplan.

1. When going man bring 6 get pressure but also get hands up to try to take away passing lanes.

2. Bringing 6 man pressures took away the qb draw element and made that a non factor.

3. Run games inside as the Cardinals have shown a tendency to get beat on some inside games, both 3 hands and 4 hands.

4. Gilmour on Hopkins was a given but just thought id mention, play the best on the best.

5. They disguised some coverages in zone 2 to 3, and man to zone with some good disguises.

6. When they blitzed, they went out of their way to get their hands up and at times Murray pulled the ball down and it caused the big interception in the 2nd half! They helped take away the quick throw.

Here  are some examples of the game plan discussed

3rd and 12

The Patriots go cover o and bring 6, dropping the nose.

They force Murray to throw it away.

on another 2nd and 12 they go cover 0. They force the slide and the right def end comes clean.

Murray scrambles for no gain.

On the next play 3rd and 10.

The Patriots confuse Murray, they show cover 2 and jump to a cover 3 look with the safety robbing #3.

They get inside pressure from #50 and they force the check down for no gain and get off the field.

The inside pressure and stunts gave the Cardinals trouble inside. Here is another Twist from their 4 hands look that gets home. on a key 2nd and 12.

On the big interception on 3rd and 3 , Murray has Hopkins open for the slant, but watch all the de get in the lane and force him to pull the ball down. By the time he tries to throw it #70 gets his paw up and knocks it up for the interception. Great coaching getting the hands up on cover 0 pressures all game to take away the quick easy throws. 

On the goalline the Patriots ran cover 0 , sent 4 and played the lbs underneath as rat defenders.

They made it difficult on a few plays but got hurt with a few penalties.

3rd and 3 

On a similar 4th and 4 they run the same concept

The Cards come out in empty

To the 2 wr side. They pats combo 2 and 3 with tthe safety and lb. LB takes him because he releases inside and the other player (the safety acts as a rat on #1) All other players are in man. 3 wr to the top of the screen are in man. If not for a tough penalty, the defense works out.

As you can see from the results, the game plan worked ut great . They kept the Cardinals to under 300 total yards and did a great job containing Murray in the run game.

Kudo's to Coach Belichick and staff.