The Bear Front And Cover 7

[JustinTime18™]

Excellent article from the Daily Norseman. For whatever reason, I can no longer c&p the link. 


The Bear FrontOne option the Vikings haven’t used much in the past is the Bear Front, which gets its name historically from the 46 Front the ‘85 Bears used, although the actual front and formation is no longer the same. The modern version is a 3-4 based front, with three big defensive tackles covering the center and guards, and the two OLB/edge rushers crashing in from outside the tackles.

Using current Vikings’ personnel in the illustration above, Michael Pierce (#97) is the two-gapping nose tackle, covering both ‘A’ gaps between the center and guards. The other two defensive tackles (or ends in a 3-4 front), in this case Sheldon Richardson (#9) and Dalvin Tomlinson (#94), both play a 3-technique on the outside shoulder of the guards. The two edge rushers, Danielle Hunter (#99) and Anthony Barr (#55) line-up as OLBs, or alternatively in a wide-9 position well outside the tackles on the line of scrimmage.
Michael Pierce, Dalvin Tomlinson, and even Sheldon Richardson are no strangers to double-teams. They’ve been doubled-teamed on many occasions- most snaps for Pierce and Tomlinson. So what happens when, in a Bear Front, they get a one-on-one matchup? Could be fun to watch.
In this illustration, all the run gaps are covered by the front five, and on a passing play it’s a five-man rush, putting stress on each offensive lineman to win their one-on-one battle against some pretty tough defensive linemen/edge rushers.
However, there is some nuance to it. In the above illustration, Anthony Barr rushes, in which case Harrison Smith (#22) would move up to cover the tight-end. But Barr could also press the TE initially, which may cause the tackle to double Tomlinson, and then rush the quarterback. The same is possible on the other side as well, with MacKensie Alexander (#24) blitzing, and Xavier Woods (#23) moving up to cover the slot receiver. Of course there are other options off the same formation, but against a suspect offensive line, and/or a quarterback that doesn’t do well under pressure, and/or a team without much for quality, go-to receivers, this front can create a lot of problems on passing downs, while still being effective against the run.
Running a Bear Front on a passing down traditionally means a Cover 1 scheme behind the front, with defensive backs in man coverage and a single high safety deep. This is basically a ‘we got the horses’ defensive call, both up front and in coverage, to both cover receivers and get to the QB quickly. But there may be a more effective coverage option.

[Guest]

So what is Cover-7?
Cover-7 is a pattern-matching coverage scheme which can be either a man-match scheme or a zone-match scheme. In a man-match scheme, a defender has a receiver in man coverage unless/until he does something that causes the defender to pass him off to another defender and cover another receiver in man coverage. That sounds pretty nebulous in the absence of the overall scheme structure, so let’s begin with that.
Above is an illustration of how the Vikings may line up initially in a Cover-7 man-match scheme, with the linebackers still covering their run gaps. It looks like a Cover-2 shell, with two deep safeties, but it’s not. Here is how Vikings’ Defensive Backs coach Karl Scott described it when he was giving a clinic on the concept while at Alabama:

“We call [Cover-7] ‘man-match quarters.’ It’s a split-field coverage. On the strong side, we’re going to play four [defenders] over three [receivers] and on the weak side, we’re playing three [defenders] over two [receivers]. How we’re playing [to each side] changes through calls that we make… We always feel like we have the advantage because we have one more than they have.”

So, as a split-field coverage, typically each safety makes the particular coverage call for his side of the field pre-snap. What that call is will depend on how many receivers are on his side, down and distance, personnel, etc. For example, the call for the outside cornerback may be ‘MOD’, which means he has the outermost receiver on his side in Man coverage for any pattern Outside or Deep. Typically the CB will position himself with inside leverage, lining up just inside the receiver, making it more difficult for him to run a quick slant route, for example. Any type of go or post or out or corner route, or even a deep in-route, the CB will cover him in man coverage. If the receiver runs a shallow crossing route, he’ll pass him off to an interior defender and work back to his deep quarter zone, potentially picking up a TE or slot receiver on a deep route, or another assignment dictated by the call. The decision to stay or pass the receiver is usually made early on- after 3 steps or so back into coverage.

Another possible call for the CB is ‘MEG,’ meaning Man coverage Everywhere he Goes, or straight man coverage. That allows the other two defenders to potentially go with a ‘bracket’ coverage, or double team the other receiver. Typically the forward defender (LB or SCB) plays a trailing man coverage, while the safety comes down over the top, creating a very tight window for the QB to hit, and a difficult reception to make with two defenders to break it up.
Lastly, the call could be MOD for the outside CB, and First to the Flat or ‘F2F’ for the LB/SCB on the 2nd from outside receiver, with the safety reading the quarterback, rallying to the ball and helping out where needed. In this case the LB or SCB will cover the first receiver to run either a shallow crosser or out/flat route. If more than one receiver does so, the safety will pick up the 2nd receiver.
Of course there are some other calls for more unusual formations/situations, but the gist of it is that defenders begin with man coverage responsibilities and either stay with their man or pass him off to another defender depending on the route he runs.
Using the same illustration as above, this is how the coverage might actually play out, given an MOD call for the outside CBs and these routes:

[Guest]

Why Cover-7?
With all the other coverages available, why the need for Cover-7? The idea behind Cover-7 is to blend the strengths, and minimize the deficiencies, of zone and man coverages. For example, most zone coverages can leave too much space for shorter routes to be completed, and have ‘holes’ in particular areas of the field that can be exploited, like seam routes in Cover-3 and intermediate out routes in Cover-2. On the other hand, traditional man coverage like in Cover-1 can lead to matchup problems against top receivers if you don’t have top CBs to cover them.
What Cover-7 does is to provide tighter coverage on short routes and deep verticals with man coverage, while establishing some pattern matching rules to help against more difficult routes and route combinations in man coverage. Additionally, Cover-7 uses leverage to help narrow passing lanes and create tighter passing windows. That makes it a bit easier for defenders than Cover 1, which is straight man coverage with a single-high safety, and is the preferred coverage any coach would love to use all the time - if you have shut-down talent at every defensive back position.
The other thing about Cover-7 that works is the split safety aspect in defeating seam routes. As Cover-3 proliferated across the league after the success Seattle had using it in the last decade with the Legion of Boom, offenses adapted and began focusing on Cover-3 beaters, which typically are seam routes that go between the deep zones. By 2018, the Expected Points Added (EPA) on seam route attempts 10-25 yards downfield was 0.46, compared to 0.05 for pass attempts overall. EPA attempts to measure the impact of a particular play on the score of the game. Against split safety coverages, they were still about as productive, but there were a lot fewer attempts as the receivers weren’t open as often.

The other thing to notice from the above graph is that deeper routes outside the numbers have pretty low completion percentages.
Patrick Peterson, who’s had a couple down years most attribute to his getting on the wrong side of 30, but it may have been more to do with the load he was asked to carry in Arizona, along with how he was used. First off, he had 691 coverage snaps last season- most of any cornerback in the league. That’s a pretty heavy load for any cornerback, let alone an older one. The other thing is that he was also asked to play in the slot at times, which didn’t help his stats. Overall, Peterson allowed a 100.8 passer rating when targeted last season, which was 52nd in the league according to PFF. But take away his more limited snaps in the slot, which include all 4 of his touchdowns allowed, and his passer rating allowed drops to 74.7 - one of the best in the league. In fact it was 10th best in the league among CBs with at least half his number of snaps. Even with his snaps in the slot, Peterson was the 5th least targeted CB per coverage snap overall, with 8.6 coverage snaps per target. Without his slot snaps, he’d have been the 2nd least targeted, at 9.3 snaps per target.

Bashaud Breeland, who’ll compete with Cameron Dantzler for the other outside CB spot, allowed a 67.2 passer rating last season per SiS (PFF has it at 90.0 - not sure why the difference). But SiS also has Breeland allowing just a 5.4 passer rating on passes 20+ yards in the air last season- best in the league apparently. According to this piece, Breeland was perhaps the best boundary cornerback on deep passes last season, but struggled more against shorter routes. In a Cover-7 scheme, where he’d likely be charged with covering more of the deep outside routes, he could do very well.
And then there is Cameron Dantzler, who after going through some rookie growing pains early last season and missing some games, finished the season from week 11 on with the 4th lowest passer rating allowed in the league - 41.9 - according to PFF.
Overall, that looks like a good 3-man rotation at outside cornerback for the Vikings, should they go with predominantly a Cover-7 scheme.

[Guest]

I read that this morning. I typically avoid these articles. They all say the same thing, things we already know.

But this one was damn good and very encouraging. Love that Zim and Dre have completely re-thought this defense in the offseason to better match up with the direction offenses are going in--like they did when they were with the Cowboys and started to craft the defense we all know as the Zimmer D. And then Rick added the pieces to make it work. Could see some exciting new stuff this year. 

[Guest]

This was excellent so thanks for posting. Here's the link to the full article.

Scheme Changes Coming for Vikings Defense - Daily Norseman

[Guest]

Its all about execution. The best laid plans.....you know the rest. But there's real optimism here. A pass rush is going to help big time as there was none last year and an improved middle for run defense.

[Guest]

I really don't care what they run or think it really matters a whole lot,  as long as they are all on the same page,  how many times in the past have we seen an opposing WR walk into the endzone because the CB mad S on that side played a situation differently giving a free deep zone away?

Really all that matter is playing tight coverage for a few mississippis longer than it takes the pass rush to get home.  Lots of ways to do that and lots of ways any scheme can go wrong or get exploited.

But I do like reading the intricacies of the varying concepts so thanks for sharing.

[Guest]

@MaroonBells said:
 Love that Zim and Dre have completely re-thought this defense in the offseason 

Where did you hear this?

[Guest]

@comet52 said:

@MaroonBells said:
 Love that Zim and Dre have completely re-thought this defense in the offseason 

Where did you hear this?

It's in the full article linked by Nichelle above.