How do you beat Cover 2 in 5v5 flag football?
Throw underneath it, immediately. Cover 2 at 5v5 means two of their four defenders are deep, which leaves two players to cover the entire short and intermediate field. That is the softest look you will see all season, and the mistake is trying to beat it deep when the free yards are five yards in front of you.
Three answers, in the order to try them
- Start here
Smash
Start here
A hitch underneath and a corner over the top of the same defender. With only two underneath players, the one who takes the corner has left the hitch completely alone rather than merely open, and the throw is free.
- If they stay patient
All Hitches
If they stay patient
Put a receiver in every underneath window and let two defenders try to cover four of them. This is the call that makes a coach abandon two-deep against you, and it is unavailable at eleven a side where five defenders fill those windows.
- If the safeties squeeze inside
Four Verticals
If the safeties squeeze inside
Only once they have started cheating on the short game. Two deep defenders covering four vertical routes is a real problem for them, but it is the third answer here because their two deep players are the only thing this coverage does well.
What changes at this size
Two deep leaves only two underneath
This is the situation where small-sided football and the eleven-a-side game diverge most sharply, and where most coaches get it wrong because they have watched the wrong football. In the NFL, Cover 2 leaves five underneath defenders and is a perfectly sound coverage. At 5v5 it leaves two. Two players cannot cover a flag field from sideline to sideline at any depth, so a defense playing genuine two-deep against you has handed you every short throw on the field and is daring you to be patient. Be patient. The corner routes and deep shots that beat Cover 2 in a stadium are the lowest-percentage answer here, because the only thing this defense has done well is defend deep. Take the five yards until they stop playing it, which usually happens in about two possessions.
When not to call it
Against a single-high look
Everything here is built on there being two deep defenders and only two underneath. One safety in the middle means four underneath instead, and the man page is the right one.
When you are impatient
The whole plan is taking five yards until they stop playing it. A coach who throws the corner route on first down because it looks open is giving back the free yards this coverage hands you.
Take it to your team
Draw your plays in the free flag football play designer, collect them in the free playbook maker, and print football play cards so every player knows them come Saturday.
Draw any of these in about a minute
Open the designer, change the routes, save it to your playbook.
Open the designerRelated questions
How do you beat Cover 2 in 5v5 flag football?
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.