Cover 4: How I Attack It

The framework I use to find what's open and have an answer ready.

Every defense, coverage, and front does the same thing.

It moves defenders to take away space.

Cover 4 is no different. Four deep, three under. The safeties sitting on the hashes protecting the inside vertical windows. The flat defenders are buzzing outside. The Mike is in the middle holding crossing concepts.

11 defenders trying to cover 15 bubbles.

Our job as OCs is to find which bubbles are open and have a play ready to attack them.

Here’s how I think through it when we face a base cover 4 team.

Start with the run game

I’m a run-first coordinator. Before I think about any passing concept, I want to know how a team fits the run.

For me to count a defender as run threat he must be at most 7 yards from the ball and inside the run box. For me, the run box is the apex between the end man on the line of scrimmage and the nearest split receiver.

So I’m looking at:

• Can I block everyone in that area?

• If I can’t, can I run a direction and not block the furthest defender?

• Do I have the ability to read someone?
  

  

If I’ve got even numbers, like in the above picture I’m running the football. I have 6 blockers for 6 defenders. I want to force them into cheating someone else in the box.

That’s when the game begins.

From there, every adjustment they make opens a bubble somewhere else.

Quick game: attack the flat

Assume they’re holding two safeties deep and keeping their structure. The only other guy they can cheat is the field flat defender.

So now our attack moves to putting him in conflict to either remove him or move the ball where he’s vacated.

This is where quick game come in.

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