What are Nickel and Dime packages in football?
Nickel and Dime in 11v11 football are personnel, not coverage: Nickel means a fifth defensive back is on the field in place of a linebacker, and Dime means a sixth. Neither word says anything about what those players do after the snap, so you still have to call a coverage. You are making a deliberate trade, giving up a player who was better against the run for one who is better in space, on the belief that the offense is about to throw it.
2 down linemen, and that is the first number in the name. A front is named for how many men are on the ball and how many are behind them. Everything else about the defense, including which coverage you call, is a separate decision.
Why this front works in 11v11
The words only exist because you have more than four defensive backs
Nickel counts defensive backs above the base four, which means the vocabulary needs a base of four to count above. In a flag format where every defender is already a back there is nothing for the word to measure, which is why this card does not appear on those hubs at all.
Substituting is a skill, and it fails before the coverage does
Getting the right eleven on and the wrong one off, in time, without a penalty, is harder at youth level than any coverage on this site. A package you have not practised substituting into will cost you twelve men on the field before it ever costs you a completion.
It is a bet on down and distance, and it can be read
If you only go Nickel on third and long, you have told the offense what you think. Good opponents run on your Nickel for exactly that reason. The package is worth having and worth occasionally using when it is not obvious.
This is personnel, not a call, and you still have to make a call
Nickel means a fifth defensive back is on the field instead of a linebacker. Dime means a sixth. That is all either word means. Neither one tells anybody what to do after the snap, so substituting and then not calling a coverage leaves you with better athletes doing nothing in particular.
You are trading run defense for cover ability on purpose
The player you took off was better against the run and the player you brought on is better in space. That is a straight trade, made because you believe the offense is going to throw. When you are wrong about that, you get run at by a team that noticed.
A front is not a coverage, and it never was
Where your linemen stand and what your defenders do after the snap are two different decisions that happen to be made in the same huddle. You can play Cover 3 out of a 3-4 or out of a 4-3, and the coverage does not know or care. Coaches who are stuck on this vocabulary are almost always trying to make one word do two jobs.
Beside the one you already know
Same offense, same personnel, different arrangement. A front is only ever where people stand.
- nickel-2-42-711v11: the nickel-2-4 front.
2 on the ball and 7 off it.
- base4-511v11: the base front for comparison.
4 on the ball and 5 off it. The same eleven men, standing somewhere else.
Three ways to use extra backs, and what each one costs
Nickel on obvious passing downs
Where it excelsThe straightforward version and the right one to start with. Better cover players on the field exactly when covering is the whole job, and your run defense is untouched on every other down.
Exposed · the middle underneathIt is completely predictable, so the draw and the screen live here. A team that runs on your Nickel is not being clever, it is reading your substitution, which is the loudest signal a defense sends.
Nickel as your base defense
Where it excelsAgainst a team that spreads you out every snap, the fifth back stops being a package and starts being the right personnel. Nothing is telegraphed because nothing changes.
Exposed · the flatYou are now light in the box on every down, and a youth team that commits to running inside will grind you. This only works when the opponent has genuinely abandoned the run.
Dime, six backs
Where it excelsA situational answer to a team that has to throw deep and everybody knows it. Six players who can run with receivers is as much coverage as this level can produce.
Exposed · deepAny run is a big run, and so is any completion underneath, because six backs against one ball carrier tackle badly as a group. Keep it for the last minute of a half and nowhere else.
Nickel on third and long, and practise the swap first
Get the substitution right before you worry about the coverage, because the penalty is a certainty and the completion is only a risk. Then add one wrinkle: go Nickel occasionally on a first down so the personnel stops being a tell. Leave Dime alone unless you are protecting a lead at the end of a half.
What to change when it stops working
They run at your Nickel back
They will, and he is on the field because he is good in space rather than because he can take on a blocker. Give him a job that suits that: force the run back inside and let somebody bigger make the tackle. Asking him to be a linebacker is asking him to be the player you just took off.
They go tempo to stop you substituting
The answer is to stop substituting. Stay in your base personnel and play the coverage you would have played in Nickel. A slightly worse cover player in the right place beats a better one arriving late or not at all.
Your linebacker is upset about coming off
Worth saying out loud because it decides whether this works. Tell him before the game which situations he is coming off in and why, so the substitution is a plan rather than a judgement on him. A package nobody resents is a package that gets executed.
When not to line up in it
When you cannot substitute cleanly
A package you cannot get on and off the field in time is a penalty waiting to happen, and at youth level the tempo of a hurry-up offense will beat your substitution before it beats your coverage. Practise the swap before you rely on it.
When your fifth back is not actually a cover player
The point is to put a better athlete in space. If the fifth defensive back is simply the next player on the list, you have made your run defense worse and your pass defense no better, which is the worst possible outcome of a deliberate decision.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free play designer, collect them in the football playbook maker, and print printable play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw it for your own team
Open the designer at 11v11, put your defenders where this page says, and print it so everybody shows up on Saturday knowing the same thing.
Open the free play designerRelated questions
What is a Nickel defense?
What is the difference between Nickel and Dime?
When should you go Nickel?
Is Nickel a coverage?
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.