What is Cover 0 in 11v11 tackle football?
Cover 0 in 11v11 football is man coverage with no safety help and everybody spare coming after the quarterback. For most teams it is a short-yardage and goal-line call: the field is compressed, the throw has to be quick, and an extra rusher is worth more than deep help that has no deep field left to protect.
Why Cover 0 works in 11v11
It is a situation, not a base
At five a side Cover 0 is a normal call because the numbers match. Here it means five or six defenders in man with five or six rushing, and the offense has blockers. Called on first and ten it is a coin flip; called on the two-yard line, where there is no deep field to give up, it is the best call on the sheet.
The rush has to beat the protection, not just arrive
An offense can block five rushers with five linemen and a back. Cover 0 only wins when there is one more rusher than there are blockers, which is why the call is usually paired with a front that creates a free runner rather than just sending more men.
Every underneath defender is alone in space
Linebackers end up covering backs and tight ends with no help inside or over the top, which is the matchup offenses hunt. The drawing here is the goal-line version for that reason: in a compressed field those matchups are survivable.
It takes away the easy throw
Every receiver is covered from the moment he moves. There is no soft area to sit in and no zone to find, which is exactly what a quarterback looks for when he sees pressure coming. The ball has to go to a covered man or not at all.
The rush is the coverage
The extra bodies are the whole point. If a quarterback needs three seconds and the call takes two of them away, how well anybody is covered stops mattering. Cover 0 is the only call where the rush and the coverage are the same decision.
Nobody has to think
Everybody has a man and the rest go. There is no pattern to read, no zone to sort out and nothing to communicate, which is why it is a call teams can add late in a season and still run correctly.
Before and after the snap
The same call twice. What a coverage IS lives in the difference between these two pictures, not in either one of them.
- The alignmentCover 0 at 11v11 before the snap: the alignment and the rush, with no coverage drawn.
Where everybody stands, and who is coming. This is all an offense sees before the ball moves, which is why a defense that tips its coverage from the alignment has given away the only thing it was hiding.
- The coverageCover 0 at 11v11 after the snap, with every zone drawn and labelled.
The same men a beat later, with what each is responsible for. Every seam and every soft spot on this page is a gap between two of these shapes.
How to beat Cover 0 in 11v11
Hot throws off the free rusher
Every protection has a rule for the man it cannot block: throw where he came from. Cover 0 gives up that throw by definition, because the defender covering the hot receiver has no inside help.
Pick routes at the goal line
In a compressed field, two receivers crossing inside five yards is the most reliable way to free one of them, and there is no zone defender to pass them off to.
Keep the back in and take a shot
If the protection holds for one extra beat, every receiver is one-on-one with nobody deep. Cover 0 is the coverage most likely to give up a touchdown rather than a completion.
What Cover 0 gives up
Anything that beats one defender
There is no help behind it, so a missed jam or one step lost is not a completion, it is six points. Every other coverage degrades when a defender loses; this one does not degrade at all.
The hot throw
Any offense that has seen pressure before has an answer built in: a receiver breaks his route off short, the ball comes out before the rush arrives, and the defender covering him is trailing by design.
A quarterback who runs
Every defender has his back to the ball and the players who would normally watch the quarterback are the ones rushing. If he escapes the first wave there is nobody left facing him.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free play designer, collect them in the free playbook maker, and print printable play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw Cover 0 for your own team
Open the designer, set your alignment, and save it to your playbook.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
When should you call Cover 0?
What is the difference between Cover 0 and Cover 1?
How do you block a Cover 0 blitz?
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Coach Ray Carroll
Coaches 5v5 flag football from kindergarten through 7th grade in San Mateo and San Carlos, California, and built RC Football to design, teach and print the plays his own teams run.