Pre-Snap/Post-Snap Coverage Read for the Quarterback

In today’s blog post, we are talking about the pre-snap/post-snap coverage read for the quarterback, and ways you can help your quarterbacks and receivers both pre-snap and post-snap the coverage read, and the best located safety – now the free safety. Before we get into this second aspect, let me say this – I don’t think the free safety is as reliable and as good a person to have for the best located safety as the strong safety is.

Pre-Snap/Post-Snap Coverage Read for the Quarterback

Either getting a lot of cover 2 and lot of cover 4, the free safety is a good choice to use. The problem about cover 3 in man coverages, is that the free safety has almost the same alignment in each. So sometimes using the free safety as the best located safety might not be the optimum way to gain a coverage read. Again, try to fit it into the scheme that you’re facing. Try to fit it in to see if that free safety is the best located safety or the strong safety’s the best located safety.

There are three positions that you have to analyze when we’re talking about the free safety. One, if he’s in the middle of the field, this is a strong indicator it’s going to be a cover 3, three deep, or man coverage. As I mentioned above, one of the problems about using the free safety, sometimes in the middle of the field, is you’re not sure whether it’s cover 3, zone coverage, three deep, or cover 1 or 0 which, to us, is manned because we’ve got to then go look to the strong safety. So sometimes you’re double reading when you use the best locate as the free safety, but a lot of people do double-read coverages; and we do too depending upon what kind of disguise we get.

There is no question about when the free safety is high and off a hash. A very strong indicator to us is if it’s cover 2 or cover 4. And there’s no question about it when the free safety is lower than normal. He is in either a blitz situation, which we don’t see very often, or he’s in a man-to-man situation where he’s covering number two because the strong safety is in a blitz mode. So now the free safety’s alignments are middle of the field, high and low.

In this diagram we’re talking about a free safety being aligned in the middle of the field. This is a very strong indicator to us that he is in cover 3. I again want to mention this though. There are a lot of times that defense will stem that free safety into a position that when the ball’s snapped, he’s no longer in the middle of the field but over number two.

That is a sort of middle of the field alignment, but you’ve got to tie in the strong safety with that. So that’s why I said previously that sometimes the free safety isn’t the best indicator of cover 3.

Now we’ve got a free safety that’s on a hash and he’s high. He’s not in the middle of the field, but he’s high over the hash. That’s a strong indicator to us that it’s cover 2, corners low.

And he and a half or cover 4 where the free safety is over the field in corner coverage. So again as I mentioned, you’ve got to figure out, based on what your alignment is and how they align or how you think they’re going to align, what is going to allow your quarterback to have the best located safety.

The third alignment that that free safety could have is a low alignment. And we always tell our quarterback, in our scheme of things, that anytime we’ve got a free safety low, find the strong safety and see where he’s aligned. For example, if the free safety’s low and over number two, this is a strong indicator that he’s in man coverage, and now we go ahead and check and see where the safety is.

And if he was low at the line of scrimmage, that would be an even stronger indicator that the strong safety is probably in a blitz mode and the free safety is covering over the top. So that’s how you can tie those best located safeties in together. Again let me just preface this at the end by saying this. We usually choose the strong safety as our best located safety in our primary read. At times, depending on what the coverage is and depending on how a defense would use the free safety, that would be our second choice in trying to find the best located safety.

Remember we talked about alignment of the free safety. Now let’s take a look at, in the structure of this defense, a team that’s given us a perfect cover 3 look with the free safety being the best located safety to pick out.

He’s kind of cheated to the twins side, which most people will do with their free safety because of number two potentially running vertical. But look. He’s high. He’s almost directly in the middle of the field, putting himself in a position now to cover a third player down the middle. That would be a pre-snap read and a post-snap read, based on what he’s going to do, that they’re playing cover 3.

As I mentioned before, when we talk about using the free safety, sometimes it’s hard to really dictate or really predict the coverage they’re in because the free safety, in our opinion, isn’t the best one to use.

But now here’s a free safety, very high, and they’re actually going to play what we call cover 1 man to man with a free safety deep. It’s a really strong indicator because of his level being high that, in this case, the defense that we’re faced right now, is playing a man-to-man coverage underneath with a free safety free over the top.

Another very reliable way to help your quarterbacks and receivers pre-snap and post-snap their coverage read is by the alignment of the corners. Again, you’ve got to understand how the defense is stemming on you, which they’re going to do sometimes.

We think a very reliable way is to figure out where the corners are. We give our quarterbacks and receivers four different ways in which we can tell whether they’re in man or zone coverage.

First, we’re always talking to our receivers – who probably see it better than anybody else, coaches – and asking if the corners are aligned outside or are they aligned inside? Here’s our general rule of thumb for our players – If the corners are aligned outside, it’s probably some form of zone. The only difference for that would be what we call double robber coverage.

And you coaches in high school probably aren’t seeing a lot of that. So an outside aligned corner would give us some kind of strong indicator that we’re in zone coverage.

If the corners are aligned inside, this is a very strong indicator that we’re getting some kind of man coverage. If the corners were aligned inside and the safeties were deep over the top, we think it’s going to be man underneath.

If the corners were aligned inside and the safeties were low, we think it’s going to be some kind of true 0 coverage, man coverage with some kind of blitz. If the corners were aligned inside and a safety high, for example, the free safety, we think that’s going to be cover 1, man free. So we try to get some real strong indicators from the corners alignment.

Now, think about this also. In certain zone coverages, the receivers are going to be either aligned by their corners low and outside. We talk about the low and outside alignment being the corner turned at a 45, and his posture – his demeanor is looking at the quarterback. We think this is a very strong indicator of cover 2. Two zone.

If the corner is aligned low and inside and his the sight line is on the receiver, disregarding the quarterback, we think that’s a very strong indicator that it’s going to be man underneath, what we call two man. And then the other way that people play the corners is what we call low and head up. Squared up with a slightly aligned inside, which is a true indicator of man to us.

Now, let me go back and reiterate a couple things for you. On the first part, when we talked about corners being outside the line, we also talk about body posture, demeanor, and body language of the corner. If the corner is slightly turned to the inside and his hips and his head seem to be looking at the quarterback, this is a true indicator of zone. If the corner is slightly aligned inside, and indicator is that his hips and his eyes and his head are pointed at the receiver, that’s a true indicator of some form of man coverage.

When we talk about reading corners, you need to tie in one of the safeties. Whether the safety’s high, low, or invert will give you a strong indicator of how all those corners and safeties tie together.

Whether it’s man or zone or a combination man and zone.

 

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