What are the positions on defense in football?
Every defense is built in three levels. The first is the players closest to the ball, who rush the passer and stop the run. The second is the linebackers and underneath defenders, who cover the short areas called the flat, the curl and the hook. The third is the deep coverage, who stay behind everything. Learn those three levels and the names of the areas and every coverage on the shelf becomes a variation on the same picture.
First level: the line The ring is on the nose tackle, and the two players either side of him are the rest of this level. Their job is to occupy blockers, keep the run from getting through and get to the quarterback. In the flag formats there is no line at all, and this level is either one rusher starting at the rush line or nobody, depending on your rulebook.
Second level: the linebackers The ring is on one inside linebacker; there are four players on this level in this call. Four to six yards off the ball, in the middle of everything. They fill the run when it gets past the line and they cover the short areas when it is a pass. This is where the Mike, the Will and the Sam live, and it is the level that decides most youth games.
Third level: the deep coverage The ring is on the free safety, with a corner in each of the other two deep thirds. The corners and safeties have one job that outranks the rest, which is that nothing gets behind them. They line up deeper than instinct says they should, they keep everything in front, and they are the reason a defense loses by six points at a time rather than by twenty.
The one who moved This safety has walked down from the third level into the flat, which is what the word sky in this call means. It is worth pointing out because almost every coverage name you will hear is really a description of which player moved and where he went.
The three levels of a defense
Level one: the line, and whoever is rushing
In tackle football this is the defensive linemen: ends on the outside, tackles or a nose inside. Their first job is not the quarterback, it is holding their gap so the run has nowhere to go, and the pass rush is what they do once the ball is clearly in the air. In flag there is no line, so this level is the rusher or rushers your rules allow, starting at whatever distance your league sets. Either way it is the level that decides how much time the quarterback gets, and every other level is easier when it does its job.
Level two: the linebackers and the short areas
Four to six yards off the ball. Against the run they fill whatever the line did not; against the pass they drop into the short areas and cover whoever comes in. This is the busiest job on the field because it is the only one that has to read run or pass before doing anything, and it is the level where a smart player is worth more than a fast one.
Level three: the deep coverage
Corners on the outside, safeties in the middle, and one instruction that outranks everything else: nothing gets behind you. A deep defender who makes a tackle five yards downfield has usually made a mistake somewhere. The number of players you keep at this level is literally what every coverage is named after, which is why Cover 2 has two and Cover 3 has three.
Every defense has all three, whatever the headcount
The levels do not appear when you have enough players, they get thinner. With five defenders you might have one rushing, one underneath and three deep, and that is still three levels. Understanding a defense as three rows rather than as a list of positions is the single most portable idea on this page, because it survives changing format, changing league and changing the number of kids who turned up.
The same three levels at five players and at seven
Neither of these defenses has a single lineman, and both still have all three levels. That is the thing worth seeing: the levels are the structure, and the bodies are whatever your format gives you.
- Five players, three levels · 5v5Five players, three levels in 5v5: Three deep, two underneath, and nobody chasing anybody. The corners and the safety each take a third of the field behind them and the two backers take the curl and the flat in front, which means every defender is watching the quarterback instead of running with a receiver. This is the call for a team that keeps getting beaten deep, for a windy day, and for the week a coach has a defender who cannot run with the man he is lined up over. The cost is the throw underneath: the space between the backers and the deep three is open by design, and a patient offense will take six yards there all afternoon. Make them prove they can.
Three deep, two underneath, and a first level that is one rusher or nobody. Every level is present and every one of them is thin, which is why a coach at this size is really deciding which level to starve.
- Seven players, three levels · 7v7Seven players, three levels in 7v7: The first defense to teach and the one to live in. Three men split the deep field into thirds and nothing gets behind them; three more own the short middle and both flats; one rushes. Tell the deep three the same sentence every week, you cannot be beaten over the top, ever, and you are allowed to give up everything in front of you. The soft spot is the ten-to-fifteen yard hole between the flat defender and the deep third above him, so if a team keeps hitting the out-and-up, this is the call you get out of.
The same three deep, with four underneath instead of two. Those two extra bodies are the difference between a flat that has an owner and a flat that is open, and it is the clearest illustration on the site of what a bigger format actually buys you.
How to teach the levels in one practice
- 1
Put them in three rows before you name anything
Walk your team onto the field and physically stand them in three rows: on the ball, four yards back, and ten to twelve yards back. Do not explain a coverage. Let them see that a defense is three rows deep, because everything else you will ever teach them is a change to one of those rows.
- 2
Set the depth of the third row too deep on purpose
Every young deep defender lines up too shallow, because the ball is in front of them and they want to be near it. Walk the back row further than feels right and leave them there. Depth costs nothing, cannot be taken away by a faster receiver, and converts the throw that beats you into the throw in front of you.
- 3
Give the second row the area names out loud
Stand a player in the flat and say the word. Stand one in the curl and say it. Do the same for the hook. Three words, three spots, five minutes. A coach who can say get to your curl and be understood has saved himself a season of pointing.
- 4
Name the linebackers and never rename them
Mike in the middle, Will and Sam outside him. Give each player his name on day one and use it for the whole season, including when you move him. The name is the job, and a player who knows he is the Mike knows what to do when you shout it in a game.
- 5
Line up the same way every single snap
The most common disaster in youth football is not a beaten defender, it is two defenders in the same place and nobody in another. One alignment your team can reach every snap removes that failure, and everything after it is a coaching problem rather than a chaos problem.
Mike, Will and Sam: what the linebacker names mean
Mike, the middle linebacker
The one in the middle, and usually the best player on your defense. He is the closest thing a defense has to a quarterback: he makes the call, he sets the front, and he fills whatever gap the run finds. In a pass he most often has the middle of the field in front of him. If you have one player who reads the game quickly, he is your Mike.
Will, the weak-side linebacker
Will is short for weak, meaning the side of the formation with fewer receivers or no tight end. There is less traffic over there, so the Will usually has more room to run and ends up chasing plays down from behind. Put a player who covers ground here.
Sam, the strong-side linebacker
Sam is short for strong, the side with the tight end or the extra receiver. He lines up in the crowded part of the formation, has to take on blockers rather than run around them, and often walks out to cover the flat. Put a physical player here, and a willing one.
Why the names exist at all
Because the strong side changes every snap and a defender cannot be told left or right. Mike, Will and Sam are jobs relative to the formation, so one word tells a player where to go against a picture he has not seen before. It is the same reason the areas have names instead of coordinates.
What changes in your format
5v5 and NFL Flag
No defensive line at all, so the first level is the rusher your rules allow, starting at the rush line, or nobody if you choose not to rush. Everything else is the second and third levels: most sound defenses here keep three deep and two underneath, or two deep and three underneath. Your linebackers will not be called Mike and Sam in most flag leagues, but the idea still helps, because you still need one player who makes the call.
6v6 and 7v7
Still no line, and now enough bodies that the second level is real. Three deep and three or four underneath means the flat, the curl and the hook can each have an owner rather than sharing one player, which is the single biggest jump in defensive quality between the flag formats. This is the size at which naming the areas out loud starts paying for itself.
9v9 and 11v11
The full picture, and the one every diagram you have seen on television is drawn from. Three or four down linemen, three or four linebackers with real names, and four defensive backs. The front is described by counting the line and the linebackers, so a 3-4 is three linemen and four linebackers and a 4-3 is the other way round. Everything on this page is at its most literal here, which is why the diagram above is an eleven-player defense.
The areas, and what each one is called
The flat
The short area outside the field numbers, from the line of scrimmage out to about seven yards. It is where the quickest throw in football goes, and it is the area most often left empty because covering it means a defender standing somewhere that feels far from the play. Whoever owns the flat should be able to say so before the snap.
The curl
Inside the flat and a little deeper, around ten to twelve yards outside the hashes. It is named after the route that lives there: a receiver runs downfield, stops, and curls back toward the quarterback. In a three-deep shell there are rarely enough bodies to cover the curl and the flat separately, so one defender takes both and the area is drawn as a single curl-flat, which is exactly what the diagram above shows.
The hook
The short middle, between the linebackers and behind the line, around ten yards deep. This is the area every crossing route runs through and the one a Cover 2 defense gives away. Zone defenses that get beaten repeatedly over the middle almost always have nobody who has been told the hook is his.
The deep thirds and halves
Behind everything, split between however many defenders you kept back there. Two deep players each own a half; three each own a third; four each own a quarter. That is all a coverage number means, and once a coach can see the back of the field as strips the difference between Cover 2 and Cover 3 stops being jargon.
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 your own defense, however it lines up
Open the designer, put your players in three rows, and save the alignment your team will use every snap.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
What are the three levels of a defense?
What do Mike, Will and Sam mean in football?
What is the flat in football?
What is the difference between the hook and the curl?
How many players should I put deep?
What does a 4-3 or 3-4 defense mean?
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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.