Vikings abandon Cover 2 zone defense

Have you guys noticed that the Vikings have abandoned the Zone, "Cover 2" defense, in favor of just letting our guys man-cover and blitz ? One of the reasons is that Tomlin loved Cover 2, but Frasier and Childress are not really zone guys, per say. So about 3 weeks ago, they said, to hell with it, let's just play man. The result has been, for instance, Cedric Griffin being far less "confused" at the line, and just covering guys. It was worked well. The linebackers now blitz far more, especially Leber and Henderson. They are bringing a lot of pressure. I noticed this first in the Chargers game. I personally think that whatever works, we should use. If it is Cover 1 or Cover 3 with man-coverage underneath, so be it...

The cover 2 relies on the Ends getting pressure on the QB. If you don't have 2 DE's who are capable of putting consistent pressure on the QB then the cover 2 won't work. We may have 2 in Robison and Edwards who may get there some day but we don't have that presence yet. So we either opened our playbook or changed the scheme ;D to work with what we have for talent at this time and it seems to have paid off.

Cover 2 doesn't imply your players are always playing zone coverage or that linebackers cannot blitz.

Maybe I mistook what Cover 2 is, but to me it is the following:

a. All pressure comes from the front 4 with very limited blitzing by linebackers
b. Linebackers each have a zone
c. Corners have to keep the receiver in front of them, and they jam on the line of scrimmage. Corners have to be big and physical, and they punish the receivers, who are in essence allowed to catch the ball underneath (in front of the safeties), but then get hit hard when they do catch it.
d. You disallow the big play pass downfield
e. Each safety has one half of the field, and they keep everything "in front" of them
f. One linebacker runs up and down the "chute" (between the hashmarks). He is the Urlacher in the defense.

That is my understanding of Cover 2. It is designed to prevent the deep pass, and to punish receivers who do catch passes, by having very fast and physical defenders hit them.

It's true that in the last few games we have probably blitzed more, and let the corners play more man. But it should be also noted that we have never just sat in a Tampa 2 zone for entire games before. There are a lot of different coverages thrown into the defensive mix

Yah we haven't been playing as much zone

But still our base formation is still the cover 2

And besides the blitzing its still been that way

I like the way the D is playing though.. I just wish we could get more turnovers

Have you guys noticed that we only blitz with our LBs, and it is almost always up the middle? I have seen very few safety blitzes and no corner blitzes.

I have noticed the man coverage though. In our base defense the safety is supposed to help over the top. When Griffin gets beat, there is rarely a safety near, suggesting he was one-on-one.

My guess is that the safeties are being used to spy the QB to generate more turnovers and cover the TE, which was killing us earlier in the year.

Like V4L said though Cover 2 is still our base, but we haven't been in it as much. We play a TON of nickle and dime.

"StillPurple" wrote:

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Maybe I mistook what Cover 2 is, but to me it is the following:

a. All pressure comes from the front 4 with very limited blitzing by linebackers
b. Linebackers each have a zone
c. Corners have to keep the receiver in front of them, and they jam on the line of scrimmage. Corners have to be big and physical, and they punish the receivers, who are in essence allowed to catch the ball underneath (in front of the safeties), but then get hit hard when they do catch it.
d. You disallow the big play pass downfield
e. Each safety has one half of the field, and they keep everything "in front" of them
f. One linebacker runs up and down the "chute" (between the hashmarks). He is the Urlacher in the defense.

That is my understanding of Cover 2. It is designed to prevent the deep pass, and to punish receivers who do catch passes, by having very fast and physical defenders hit them.

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The only thing that defines a cover 2 is (e.) - having two safeties each cover half the field.
A lot of the other stuff can be incorporated with that, but doesn't have to be.
But underneath the 2 deep safeties you can use various combinations of zone and man coverage and mix in blitzes as you see fit.

For example, the middle linebacker playing a deep zone in the center of the field is the 'Tampa 2' version of the cover 2.

"StillPurple" wrote:

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Have you guys noticed that the Vikings have abandoned the Zone, "Cover 2" defense, in favor of just letting our guys man-cover and blitz ? One of the reasons is that Tomlin loved Cover 2, but Frasier and Childress are not really zone guys, per say. So about 3 weeks ago, they said, to hell with it, let's just play man. The result has been, for instance, Cedric Griffin being far less "confused" at the line, and just covering guys. It was worked well. The linebackers now blitz far more, especially Leber and Henderson. They are bringing a lot of pressure. I noticed this first in the Chargers game. I personally think that whatever works, we should use. If it is Cover 1 or Cover 3 with man-coverage underneath, so be it...

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How do you know this?

"V" wrote:

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Have you guys noticed that we only blitz with our LBs, and it is almost always up the middle? I have seen very few safety blitzes and no corner blitzes.

I have noticed the man coverage though. In our base defense the safety is supposed to help over the top. When Griffin gets beat, there is rarely a safety near, suggesting he was one-on-one.

My guess is that the safeties are being used to spy the QB to generate more turnovers and cover the TE, which was killing us earlier in the year.

Like V4L said though Cover 2 is still our base, but we haven't been in it as much. We play a TON of nickle and dime.

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I would think that we simply cannot afford to blitz with a safety.
We already have problems with them back there, and taking one out of coverage could spell disaster.
Also, I do not see Sharper as a blitz guy one bit.