DETROIT - Part 2: Cover 3 - PGaither84's Blog

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DETROIT - Part 2: Cover 3

Posted on July 2, 2013 at 05:29 PM.

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NOTE: If the images appear cut off to you, right click them and select "View Image" to see the full image

Now that we know what the DETROIT personnel package is, and what coverages we want to expect to call against it, now we want to take a closer look at the Stack Cover 3, or really a 4-3 Cover 3.We will look at Stack/4-3 "Rita" or "Linda" later.

Here is a far away shot of the DETROIT Cover 3 page. In a little bit we will take a closer look:

The main idea here is to see that based on the various alignments out of the DETROIT personnel, and a basic Cover 3 call, what kind of sight adjustments will be made. In APF 2K8, we notice the following Single Back formations [read left to right]: ACE, TIGHT TRIPLE, ACE TRIPS, and PAIR SLOT along with flipped versions of each.

Against a standard ACE formation, with a Stack Cover 3, we willlook like this:

When flipped upside down like how we see it in a video game, it will look like this:

However, that is difficult to read, so I drew it up in MS Paint to look like this:

Well, what does that mean? Well that means that if I want to recreate this play call, I should call a 4-3 Cover 3 and use the LB shift Left adjustment to turn this into a 4-3 Under Cover 3:

So finally we can use the concepts talked about and represent that on the field. But that's not all. Now that we know what kind of call we want against DETROIT personnel, as a default call... what if they don't come out in an ACE formation? What if they come out in something different? Well, that's why we look closer at the rest of the possible alignments:

Upon closer inspection, we still call the same play and defensive alignment against TIGHT TRIPLE, ACE TRIPS and PAIR SLOT flipped [labeled "Flood Left YY," "Trips Left," and "Denver Left YY Close" respectively in the 84 Giants playbook]

We can understand that better if we flip the image, like we are accustomed to seeing it in a video game:

Against TIGHT TRIPLE & ACE TRIPS flipped, and PAIR SLOT, we simply call Cover 3 Weak:

This also means that I will be adjusting my audibles to make these adjustments like they do in real life.

I will talk about what audibles I selected and why in a future blog

Now, with all of that covered, we still aren't done. There is one other type of Cover 3 we want to call. This one looks more like a Cover 2 presnap. In a normal Cover 1 and Cover 3, we have the Middle of the Field Covered, known more commonly as MoFC. The next type of Cover 3 we will be talking about will be Middle of the Field Open, or MoFO [yes, I am laughing too "mo fo!"]

We will be talking about "Rita" and "Linda" calls:

So, as it says above, these calls will be made REGARDLESS of the strong side of the formation. Rather, they will be made based on the wide side of the field, or if we want to shade a certain receiver [Such as Jerry Rice]

Here is a visual example [Note, the PDF file is a scan of an old playbook, and sometimes, like in this image, some of the image has been cut off. However, we can still easily decipher the meaning:

Now I will flip the image to get a view that we are more accustomed to:

What does this all mean for All-Pro Football 2K8? Well, that means I call the other Cover 3 shell:

In this case, but not pictured because I forgot to do it, I would want to use the LB shift Right function to make this a 4-3 Over front. I would make this call when the offense is on the far right hash marks, or I want to favor a star receiver, such as Rice. In my preseason game against the Legends, I did not do this late in the game and Rice burnt me for two big scores. Now I have learned this idea, I want to apply it to my future game planing. Here is a picture of me calling it even though the offense is on the far left hash mark, simply because I want to focus on taking away Rice if possible:

I forgot again to turn this into a 4-3 Over. I must not do that in a game! If it were not for Rice [or another star receiver I would want to focus on] I would have just called the opposite ["Linda"] when the offense was on the left hash mark.

So, that's it for now. We have talked about calling the Cover 3 and Rita/Linda Cover3 calls against DETROIT [2TE 1HB 2WR] personnel groupings. I hope you enjoyed this read as much as I enjoyed putting it together

P.S.
I just wanted to throw in an extra bit where I show the same concepts but in Madden NFL 12 where you can create custom playbooks

Both of these plays can be flipped with a quick audible in Madden when needed.

Here is the "LINDA" call, which can be flipped into a "RITA" call:

In my opinion, this one doesn't work as well in Madden, so I stopped using it. If you use control the RITA/LINDA safety, maybe you can get it to work. I also hot route the RITA/LINDA Corner Back into a Hook zone rather than a flat zone. Without user control, the computer can and will complete bombs on me all day... and I prefer to play on the defensive line in Madden, so I don't call this anymore. It works a lot better in APF2K8.

I will talk about blitzing out of the cover 3 later... or you can read earlier blogs.