What is Cover 2 in 5v5 flag football?
In 5v5 flag football Cover 2 splits the deep field in half between two defenders and leaves three underneath, which is the most bodies any call in this format puts in front of the quarterback. It is the answer to an offense living on quick outs and slants, and the only call at this size where one of your linebackers has to go and play like a safety.
Why Cover 2 works in 5v5
A linebacker becomes a deep half defender
At eleven a side Cover 2 is played by two actual safeties who line up there every snap. At five there is one safety on the field, so the second deep half belongs to a defender who was underneath on the last call. Pick that man deliberately and rep it, because asking a player to turn and run to a spot twelve yards away is a different job from anything else he does all game.
Three underneath is a genuine wall, and it is the point
This is the only 5v5 call that puts three defenders in the short zones. Against a team throwing five-yard outs, hitches and slants all afternoon, three sets of eyes across the width of the field is what finally takes it away. Cover 3 cannot do that and man coverage does not even try, so this is the specific answer to that specific problem.
The seam is the price, and there is nobody to fix it
Two deep halves meet in the middle of the field and the throw straight up that seam is the one this coverage gives away. At eleven a side a Tampa 2 sends a linebacker to run the middle and close it. At five there is no spare defender to do that, so the answer is not scheme, it is talking: the two deep men have to communicate that whoever the ball goes to, the other one is the help.
Five underneath is a lot of underneath
Most passing offenses live between the line of scrimmage and fifteen yards. Cover 2 puts five defenders in exactly that band with their eyes on the quarterback, so the quick game gets smothered and every completion is contested immediately. A team that has been living on slants and flats will look slow against it.
The corners can be aggressive
With a safety over the top of each half, a corner does not have to respect the deep ball alone. He can sit on the flat, jam the outside receiver and play everything in front of him, which takes away the two easiest throws in football and forces the quarterback to hold it.
Everybody is looking at the quarterback
Zone defenders face the ball, so a bad throw is an interception rather than an incompletion. It is the shell that generates turnovers on tipped balls and late decisions, because eleven pairs of eyes are watching the thing that is about to be thrown.
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 2 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 2 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 2 in 5v5
Throw it up the middle seam
Send a receiver straight up the middle of the field between the two deep defenders. Neither owns him cleanly and there is no third defender to rotate over. It is the most direct answer to two-deep at any size and it is more available at five a side than anywhere else, because nobody can be spared to run the middle.
Put a corner route over the top of a hitch
The outside deep defender has the whole half and the underneath defender has the flat. Run a hitch at five in front of him and a corner at ten behind him on the same side and he is wrong either way. That is a smash concept, and against a two-deep shell it is the read a young quarterback can be taught in one practice: throw the hitch unless the defender jumps it.
What Cover 2 gives up
The hole between the safeties
Two deep defenders cannot cover the whole width, so the middle of the field at about eighteen yards belongs to nobody. Any route that gets a receiver there with the safeties widened is the classic answer, which is why a deep dig or a seam down the middle is the first thing an offensive coordinator looks for.
Four verticals, or anything that stretches it
Sending more deep receivers than there are deep defenders is arithmetic the coverage cannot answer. Two safeties against four vertical routes means two of them are running at grass, and the coverage has no way to be right. This is the reason Tampa 2 exists.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the football play designer, collect them in the flag football playbook builder, and print play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw Cover 2 for your own team
Open the designer, set your alignment, and save it to your playbook.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
How do you play Cover 2 with only five defenders?
Cover 2 or Cover 3 in 5v5 flag football?
Why is our Cover 2 called a 5v5 3-2?
Related guides
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.