every coverage has a weakness. every zone has holes. thats part of the chess match. the RCB and/or LCB dropping all the way back to cover half or 1/3rd of a field is quite common in zone blitzes and prevents. you don't want them blitzing because they have the furthest to travel so you start them off ball and have them drop back
Boundary CB’s drop into deep 3rds all the time, it’s the essence of Cover 3, but I don’t think boundary CB’s drop to Deep halves. Every coverage has a weakness yes, but there are no zone coverages that are that careless with the big play. If you can show me a single play breakdown from a reputable source that shows a boundary CB drop to deep half in a Cover 2 I will absolutely eat my words, but I just don’t think it exists. Also, I doubt very much that in an exotic look like that that may exist out there somewhere, the Jets would be putting Brandin Echols into that kind of difficult situation. Maybe Jalen Ramsey could pull something like that off, maybe. But even still probably not.
Yeah I mean I think you probably saw the LeBeau Steelers defenses do stuff like that and maybe the Ravens over the years or Dom Capers. Veteran defenses with exotic zone blitz schemes. Other than that I doubt the run of the mill defensive coordinator has it in their playbook. It completely defeats the purpose of playing deep halves because you’re back pedaling you’re corner into a huge area leaving them no ability to break in or out.
Yeah man even if LeBeau ran that, he was doing it with studs all over the field, and even then highly situationally. How could you ever defend a post and go route combo from a WR+TE on the same side? It’s not like it’s that hard to pick up a nickel blitz, and if you pick it up that would be like a guaranteed TD.
literally every cover 0 is careless with the big play, so is single high. it's all about playing it smart. the "careless big play calls" are often on 3rd and short-medium just like this one was. the idea is you assume the offense wants to get rid of it quick and get the 1st and not looking for the big play. Just because it may not be common doesn't mean it's not an ace in the hole play to confuse the QB. I mean Qbs don't line up as WRs often, except when they do. the idea is to confuse the defense. in this play the idea is to stack the line to gain with zones from the LBers and CBs, bring a blitz, and have a CB cover deep along with a safety. it basically switched the CB and S position which could be because of the speed of our CBs compared to the speed of our safeties and to confuse the QB who may see the safety come up and think he has a shot over the top. it is also possible another safety was supposed to be deep. Hard to say, all we do know is dunn was responsible for the deep zone and missed his assignment which allowed them to convert. Anyway the play call is an inverted cover 2. Invert means the Cbs and safeties swap responsibilities. it's not very common but it's not uncommon. here is one from BBV with the giants running it dropping the 2 CBs in place of the 2 safeties here is a good explanation as well with video https://alleyesdbcamp.com/coverages-explained-2-invert/ The idea for the jets in this case if i'm ulbrich at least is it's 3rd and 6, who blitz and back off the Cbs, make the Qb think it's heavy pressure with lots of deep zone, the QB presnap determins to go to the hot WR outside and does so when they drop back but the safety crashes in to make the tackle short of the line to gain. it's a good call but dunn fucked it up. he ran with the WR taking that outlet away and pressure didn't make it so that WR got behind him to the spot he should have been. if he had done hsi job it's likely we stop them short
Credit due for finding the Inverted Cover 2, but even so you can see clearly that’s not what they were running in the play we're talking about. It's a quintessential Cover 3 Nickel Blitz look: Neither Hall nor Dunn backpedal pre-snap which is a must for Cover 2 Invert. Immediately Post-Snap, Davis drops back to deep middle, if this was Cover 2 Invert he would be shooting to the flat not backpedaling. Hall is in Press technique which in this case calls for Zone Match. Dunn is in Bail Technique. The defensive right as a 1, 2 and 3 threat. The defensive left has a 1 and 2 threat. The Carter II, the Nickel CB (Sam in this case) blitzes, but the Dolphins keep a 7 man protection. This reduces the left threat to 1 and the right threat to 1+2. Considering the Jets have 3 in coverage left to cover 1 guy, and they have 3 in coverage right to cover 2 guys, this should be a short gain or incompletion. The reason Davis cheats left towards Hall is because Hall is in the press match situation, making it almost like a man coverage on that side. Davis slides over to help out with that. The #1 threat tot he defensive right attacks the hook/curl zone, which was abdicated by the blitzing Sam. Riley the Safety carries the #2 threat outside to that zone, and was in position to make a PBU or more likely the tackle. Dunn is supposed to carry the #1 threat in bail tech and then drop him if he sticks in the hook/curl, and protect the deep 1/3rd if the #2 threat enters that zone. While in his bail, Dunn panics when the #1 threat hooks and he doesn't immediately see Riley and stops his bail. It's really just a simple example of a super basic coverage in which 1 player didn't do his job. If Dunn does his job, best case scenario, Tua goes to the #1 and the pass is broken up. Worst case scenario he goes to the #2 and its a 50/50 ball opportunity between Hollins and Dunn, and Hollins comes down with it. By not doing his job, it's a TD.
well we can't really count anything dunn did because it's clear he blew his assignment. as far as davis not switching with hall thats part of the "wrinkle" system you hear coaches talk about. they take a play and make a small adjustment with it to confuse the offense. the wrinkle could have been only invert to 1 side which is why dunn got confused on his assignment. what that does is if the QB looks right 1st he thinks its cover 2 but if he looks left 1st he thinks it's cover 2 invert. I'll admit it's a weird play and without the after view of them yelling at dunn and riley yelling at dunn to get back and him trying to recover I would assume that riley blew his assignment. there was no 3rd deep though here. part of the cover down was the nickel blitzing which changes things. what we know is dunn was supposed to be deep half and davis the other deep half. 5 rushers, and 2 LBers, a S, and a CB playing flat zones around the line to gain. you could be right as far as the assignments go, it was a good playcall and dunn just blew it. it happens. but it definitely wasn't cover 3 unless a 2nd player blew an assignment. You have to remember too that NFL play books are like 100 pages long it's not the basics we get in say a madden game. they take basic plays and add wrinkles to confuse the offense. it's possible dunn was in a press/bail with riley cutting underneath. miami only sent out 3 which is why we had the numbers on the back end so it did confuse miami as they though we were going heavy blitz and they went max protect
Cover 2 Invert is already the wrinkle. It’s a rare play call, a wrinkle is a small change to a semi-frequently run play. The Jets would never run Cover 2 Invert often enough to add a wrinkle to it
the wrinkle was to invert 1 side. it was a basic cover 2 nickel blitz with 1 side inverted to confuse the QB. sadly it confused our CB instead
