What is Cover 1 in 11v11 tackle football?
In 11v11 football Cover 1 rushes four, matches five defenders to the five eligible receivers, and keeps a free safety in the deep middle with a hole player underneath him. That leaves eleven accounted for with nobody spare, which is why it is the shell almost every pressure package is built on: any extra rusher comes straight out of the coverage.
Why Cover 1 works in 11v11
Four rushers is the whole reason to call it
A 7v7 defense rushing one has six players to cover three or four receivers and does not need man coverage to do it. Here the offense has five eligibles and an offensive line, so a four-man rush is the minimum that pressures a quarterback, and man coverage is what pays for it. The shell exists to keep four coming.
There is a hole player, and he is the difference
The diagram shows a linebacker sitting underneath the free safety rather than on a receiver. He has no man: his job is the shallow crossers and the quarterback who takes off. At seven a side there is nobody spare to do that, so the same shell there is genuinely naked against a scramble in a way this version is not.
Somebody has to cover the running back
Five eligibles means a back who releases is a receiver, and the defender assigned to him is usually a linebacker giving up twenty pounds of speed. Offenses know this. Checking a back into a route against man is one of the oldest answers in football, and it is the matchup this coverage most often loses.
Every receiver is somebody's problem
There are no seams and no soft spots to find, because nobody is guarding grass. A route that gets open has beaten a man rather than found a hole, which means the offense needs a player to win rather than a scheme to work. Against an opponent whose receivers are not better than your defenders, that is a very good trade.
It frees up extra rushers
Matching bodies uses exactly as many defenders as the offense has eligibles and no more. Everyone left over can come, which is why almost every pressure package in football is built on a Cover 1 shell. The quarterback is looking at man coverage and a count he cannot block at the same time.
The free safety erases one mistake
The single deep defender exists so that a beaten corner is a completion rather than a touchdown. That is the entire job, and it is why the coverage survives at every level: it accepts that somebody will lose and puts a player behind him whose only responsibility is to make it cost less.
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 1 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 1 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 1 in 11v11
Put two man defenders on the same piece of grass
Mesh, and any concept with a legal rub, works by making two defenders who must follow their receivers run into each other. Nobody has to beat anybody. Against eleven players there is more traffic to work with than at any smaller size, which is why the air raid crossers are the classic answer here.
Run the quarterback
Every defender has his back to the ball. A designed quarterback run or a scramble finds green grass, and the only man looking is the hole player. This is why a spy is the most common adjustment made to the shell, and why an option team sees Cover 1 less than anybody.
What Cover 1 gives up
Traffic, rubs and crossers
Man defenders have to follow their receivers, so anything that puts two of them on a collision course wins without anyone beating anybody. Mesh, pick concepts and deep crossers are all designed to do exactly this, and they are the reason man coverage looks fine for a quarter and then gives up three straight completions.
A quarterback who runs
Everybody has a man and everybody has their back to the ball. If the quarterback pulls it down and goes, there is frequently nobody looking at him at all. This is the single biggest weakness of the shell and the reason a spy is the most common adjustment made to it.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the football playmaker, collect them in the football playbook maker, and print printable play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw Cover 1 for your own team
Open the designer, set your alignment, and save it to your playbook.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
What does the number in Cover 1 mean?
Is Cover 1 man or zone?
Who covers the running back in Cover 1?
When should I call Cover 1 at eleven a side?
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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.