What is Cover 0 in 5v5 flag football?
Cover 0 in 5v5 flag football means four defenders take the four eligible receivers and the fifth comes after the quarterback, with nobody left deep. It is the most aggressive call available at five a side, and it is more reasonable here than it sounds: the field is short, the rush arrives quickly, and the arithmetic matches exactly.
Why Cover 0 works in 5v5
The numbers are exact rather than generous
Four eligible receivers and four cover defenders means nobody is doubled and nobody is spare. At eleven a side Cover 0 leaves a defense outnumbered somewhere; here it leaves it even everywhere, which is why the call is a normal part of a 5v5 plan rather than an emergency.
The deep ball is the entire risk
One beaten defender has the whole field behind him. In a format where the end zone is rarely more than thirty yards away, that is not a long gain, it is a touchdown, and it is the reason to call this on a down where the offense cannot afford to take the shot.
The quarterback run decides how good it is
If your league lets the quarterback cross the line, Cover 0 hands him a field with nobody facing him. In NFL Flag, where he cannot run at all, the same call is far safer, which is the clearest example on this site of a rule changing a coverage rather than a technique.
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 5v5 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 5v5 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 5v5
Throw before the rusher arrives
A slant or a quick out from the widest receiver beats this call by timing rather than by beating anybody. The defender is trailing by design and the ball is gone before the rush matters.
Cross two receivers
Two receivers running at each other five yards downfield makes their defenders collide, and in Cover 0 there is nobody to clean it up. It is the standing answer and it works at every size.
Run the quarterback, where the rules allow it
Every defender has his back turned and the one player who could watch him is the one rushing. Where the quarterback may cross the line, this is the cheapest ten yards in flag football.
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 flag football play creator, collect them in the playbook maker, and print 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
Is it a good idea to blitz in 5v5 flag football?
How do you beat an all-out blitz in flag football?
What is Cover 0?
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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.