What is Cover 3 in 5v5 flag football?
In 5v5 flag football Cover 3 divides the deep field into three between two corners and a safety, leaves two defenders underneath, and rushes nobody. Every defender faces the quarterback instead of running with a receiver, which is what makes it the call for a team that keeps getting beaten deep or has a defender who simply cannot stay with the man across from him.
Why Cover 3 works in 5v5
Two underneath defenders cover a field built for four
At eleven a side Cover 3 leaves four underneath and the curl and the flat each have an owner. At five there are two, and each one is responsible for a curl and a flat on his whole half. That is a genuinely bigger area than the same call gives a linebacker at any other size, and it is why the throw in front of this coverage is open by design rather than by mistake.
The soft spot is a band, not a seam
The classic Cover 3 hole is the seam between a corner and the safety. Here the bigger space is horizontal: the gap between where the two underneath men can get to and where the deep three start. A patient offense will take six yards in that band every single snap, and a coach should decide in advance that he is happy to make them prove they can do it ten times without a mistake.
Count the deep defenders and you have the call
With five on the field, three deep leaves two underneath and no rush; two deep leaves three underneath; one deep leaves four in man. The shell is the whole sentence at this size, which is not true at eleven where the front can change independently of the coverage behind it. Teach your team to count the deep defenders on our own diagrams and they can name any call in the book.
Nothing goes over the top
Three defenders splitting the width means no deep zone is more than about eighteen yards across, which is a distance one player can genuinely defend. Against a team that wants to take shots, this is the shell that makes every deep ball contested, and it does it without needing a single defender to be faster than anybody.
It keeps a defender in the box
Two-deep shells spend a safety on the second half of the field. Cover 3 spends him on the run instead, which is why it is the base coverage of almost every defense that expects to face a running team. It is the compromise coverage in the best sense: reasonably good against everything rather than excellent against one thing.
The rules are simple enough to play fast
Take your third, take your area, keep everything in front. There is no matching, no pattern reading and nothing to sort out after the snap, so young players can run it in week one. Defenders who are not thinking are defenders who are running, and that is worth more at most levels than any scheme advantage.
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 3 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 3 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 3 in 5v5
Sit down in the space nobody owns
Run hitches and curls at eight to ten yards between the underneath defenders and the deep three. Nobody is assigned to that band, so the receiver is not beating anyone, he is standing where the coverage is not. Two receivers doing it at once on the same side forces one underneath defender to pick, and he cannot get to both.
Flood one third with two receivers
A deep third defender can only carry one man. Send two into the same third at different depths, a corner route over a go, and he has to choose. This is why a smash or a corner concept works against zone in a way it does not against man, and at five a side there is no second safety to rotate over and fix his mistake.
What Cover 3 gives up
The seams between the thirds
Three deep zones have two seams, and a receiver running straight up either one puts a defender in conflict: he cannot cover both. Four verticals attacks exactly this, and so does any concept that sends a slot receiver vertically while an outside receiver occupies the corner.
Flooding one underneath zone
Only four defenders play underneath, so sending three receivers to one side means somebody is uncovered by definition. A flood concept with a flat route, an out and a deep route on the same side is the classic answer and is very hard to defend without a check.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free play designer, collect them in the free playbook maker, and print play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw Cover 3 for your own team
Open the designer, set your alignment, and save it to your playbook.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
Can you rush in 5v5 Cover 3?
Is Cover 3 good for 5v5 flag football?
Who takes the deep middle third in 5v5?
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.