Cover 2 has been a staple in NFL defenses since the 1970s. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia.
DAVID JACOBS | ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR | drjacobs@butler.edu
Overtime, or “OT,” is an opinion column series where the Collegian takes national sports headlines or polarizing topics and gives them a Butler-centric angle.
When the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers terrorized offenses throughout the league with their “Steel Curtain” defense, it was due to defensive coordinator Bud Carson and head coach Chuck Noll debuting the Cover 2 scheme. The pioneering strategy combated a decade’s worth of quarterback renaissance in the 1960s that saw the league’s first 3,000 and 4,000-yard passing seasons.
A simple strategy at its foundation, the Cover 2 defense involves two safeties splitting the field in half, each responsible for their respective deep half. Underneath, the cornerbacks and linebackers typically each have a soft zone protecting their part of the field against specific routes and concepts an offense may run.
Despite the coverage scheme dating back nearly 70 years, ESPN Senior NFL Insider Mel Kiper Jr. went on an exhausting rant about how the two high safeties are ruining the game of football due to passing yards being the lowest they have been since 2007.
Ryann Bahnline, a senior English and secondary education double major, thinks the whole outrage was absurd.
“[Kiper’s] whole issue is with the two high safeties [which] is also used in Cover 4, not just Cover 2,” Bahnline said. “I think that what he’s saying masks a lot of issues in the NFL right now. It’s [not] just limiting the amount of explosive plays; it’s offensive lines collapsing, receivers not being able to get past the safeties or coaches not being the best [they] could be.”
However, some fans like sophomore exploratory business major Michael Malone have sensed the lack of explosive plays while watching games this season.
“I think some type of rule needs to change,” Malone said. “Whether that is changing defenses to make the fan experience better [or something similar] because that long play is missing a lot in the game.”
The absence of long plays can be blamed on various reasons. It certainly is not because of the high safeties, nor is it the modern pass-rush being too much for offensive lines to keep up.
With the pass-rush win rate being slightly lower this year, offensive lines are not to blame for the lack of passing. This season, 17 teams boast at least a 40% pass-rush win rate, compared to 18 teams last season. So, if pass-rush is the same and the safeties are not to blame, why are passing numbers lowered?
The answer is simple — the NFL is an ever-evolving league the home to the greatest football minds in the world. Coaches and players will always be able to figure each other out and find ways to get the slightest of advantages against one another.
An example of this comes just after the birth of the Cover 2 defense when offenses in the 1980s would see another renaissance after figuring out how to beat the Cover 2 defense. Throughout the decade, Hall of Fame passers would continuously break Joe Namath’s 1967 passing-yard record of 4,007 yards before Dan Marino would be the league’s first 5,000-yard passer in 1984 — a record he would hold until 2011.
With offenses again adapting to the current defensive strategies, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy would devise a solution to combat the increasing passing numbers across the league.
Named after the city where he brought the strategy to life as head coach of the Buccaneers in the late 1990s, Dungy’s Tampa 2 defense is a similar concept to Cover 2. Having played in the system under Carson and Knoll as a defensive back with the Steelers, Dungy’s scheme inserts the middle linebacker into the middle third of the two deep safeties covering their respective halves.
While the Tampa 2 concept ultimately fizzled out once Dungy stepped away from coaching in 2008, it gave a base foundation for the current Cover 2 defenses that Kiper pleads to ban, as well as the Cover 4 and Cover 6 formations that also utilize the two-high safeties.
In Kiper’s rant, his main worry is the lack of explosive plays and deep passes due to the Cover 2 safeties. Although the safeties are far back, explosive plays can still be found in many ways to beat the simple coverage.
Sophomore sports media major Scott Delande has seen these explosive plays continuously still happening, and is adamant about the game being “Perfectly fine as is.”
“I went to the [Chicago] Bears versus Colts game and saw a few downfield passes,” Delande said. “Anthony Richardson had one to Alec Pierce that was [44] yards, and [Rome] Odunze had a catch that went for [47] yards. Even on Monday Night Football, Jayden Daniels had a good play to Terry McLaurin [to win it]. There may be less [explosive plays], but not so much to the extreme measures he is talking about.”
Although the explosive plays may not always be coming in the form of the deep go-routes in years past, the explosive run rate of rushes over 20 yards is the highest it has been since tracking started in 2013 with 19 running backs averaging at least one 20-yard rushing attempt per game.
“I think that coordinators [are] utilizing their tools more,” Bahnline said. “[Coordinators] are letting quarterbacks scramble who are able to do so, and handing it off to a wide receiver who is fast and seeing what happens.”
Along with offensive play calling being as creative as it has ever been, the blame for the decreasing number of passing statistics can be drawn back to an overarching consensus of poor quarterback play.
“When I was younger, the league was full of elite quarterbacks,” Bahnline said. “Now, running backs are becoming a lot more prevalent in the game and tight ends are stepping up a ton. It’s not just who can sling it down the field, I think the game is becoming more dynamic which also makes it a bit more boring to watch as fans because you don’t have those explosive quarterback plays.”
Regardless of what Kiper claims to be wrong with football, there is a laundry list of game aspects that would better fix football before moving the safeties closer to the line of scrimmage.
“I don’t agree with changing safeties and how teams play,” Malone said. “[However], I think that offenses need to adapt, or maybe a different defensive rule needs to come in place.
Decade after decade, quarterbacks and offenses have been able to adapt and exploit defenses to gain advantages for their teams. In due time, the current quarterback landscape will be able to adjust to the complex defensive packages being thrown at them.
It has been four weeks of football. Give the players time to get into mid-season form and stop overreacting because teams are utilizing their running backs.
