One Does Not Simply Replace Harrison Smith, Part 3: About Cover 4

This is part three of a three-part series about Harrison Smith, his impact, and how well his likeliest replacements Jay Ward and Theo Jackson will be able to fill his shoes. Part one was about the basics of safety play, footwork, and tackling angles. Part 2 discussed safeties in Cover 2, and today, we’ll go over how they play in Quarters, specifically, Brian Flores’ Hot Quarters coverage.

Back in the 1990s, Bill Belichick and Nick Saban were head coach and defensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns. As the story goes, they were struggling with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ four verticals concept. 

They couldn’t play Cover 3 because there were too many deep routes. They couldn’t play Cover 4 because of all the concepts the Steelers had to exploit the lack of underneath zones. And they didn’t have the talent to play the Steelers man-to-man. 

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They needed the sticky techniques of man coverage, but with the leverage advantages afforded to them by zone. So they invented the concept of “pattern match” zone. At the time, they were inventing a new form of Cover 3.

For those Browns teams, pattern matching meant a Cover 3 that added a fourth deep defender if one was required. This wasn’t really zone at all. Now, these principles have taken over the world of Cover 4 or Quarters.

Dispense with the idea you might have in your mind of Cover 4 that you’ve maybe seen from Madden or EACFB. This is a pattern match man coverage. 

Pattern match means there is a set of rules that dictates who you cover, and you play man coverage from there. The important thing to remember is leverage. An inside player will be asked to play to the inside of his receiver, often with help from an outside player. It’s easier than the pure man-to-man coverage you might play in the park, if you can master the rules and principles. 

The Vikings make liberal use of a coverage I’ll call “Hot Quarters”. That’s a six-man coverage that pairs with any number of exotic five-man pass rushes. So you have to lose one of the classic Quarters defenders. Flores opts to cut out the middle defender underneath and change how the flats work a bit.

This coverage uses classic “Palms” rules (Called Cut, if you’re a Saban enjoyer), meaning that it plays out like normal Quarters unless someone quickly threatens the flat. In that case, the corner will trigger downhill, and the safety on that side will take over his deep responsibility, converting into a deep-half defender.

I like to think of Palms as Quarters that can become Cover 2 if it needs to. Its native language is Quarters, but it spent a semester in a country that speaks Cover 2 and won’t shut up about it.

Here’s a perfect illustrative example. The top gets a quick underneath route, the bottom gets a late release to the flat. You can see how the coverage rules are different. We’ll still draw typical zones for the sake of understanding, but keep in mind these players will play to routes, not drop to landmarks.

First, watch Fabian Moreau and Joshua Metellus at the bottom. They get one release, a vertical stem, and double-cover it. Metellus takes the inside, Moreau takes the outside, and everything’s fine.

Compare to Isaiah Rodgers at the top. He gets a short route from Terry McLaurin, which counts as a threat to the flat, so he triggers down. The Commanders try to exploit this by running a corner behind him, so Murphy has to then midpoint the two routes while Byron Murphy plays over the top. That softens Rodgers’ hold on McLaurin’s under route, but he has help inside from Andrew Van Ginkel.

Sack.

Picture perfect Palms. For it to work, everyone has to have the same read about what is going on. With one fewer defender, they have to rely more than usual on help from their teammates.

Because this is a blitz coverage, we expect the pass rush to get home, so we can play a lot more aggressively. There’s no “getting beat over the top” like in Cover 2, because there shouldn’t be enough time to set that throw up.

Back in week 1, it wasn’t as well-oiled a machine. Byron Murphy gets a hard vertical release from DJ Moore, and doesn’t see DeAndre Swift release fast to the flat.