Whatdya' think

Personally, at the level you are at I would invert the coverage, showing C3 and let the CB play the TE in a Double tight set. CB or Safety can cover the Wide out. That way I still have 8 run stoppers in the box. NO FREE RELEASE DE or OSLB can hit the TE as they come off to delay the route. The LB's are then locked into their responsibilities as well. Truth be told very rare that the CB's will drop deeper than 12 yards before coming up to assist wit the run game.


.....................................................
.C......................................C
.......LB.......LB......LB.......LB.............S
.........DE......T......T......DE.

........E...T...G..C..G...T...E
......................1...............................X
.
...................2.....3

Just thinking outside the Box

I know what your saying with the OLB not in coverage is free to the ball at all times, but suprisingly I've never seen a TE in our league run a delay pattern, so I would have him read the TE, if he blocks, play ball, if releases, pick him up. What makes me think of this is the top team in our league last year ran a 5-4 with the corners up on the line making it a 7-4 basiclly, no safety, and the only time I saw anyone run a delay was in the playoffs, the backer trailed the TE a bit and the QB over threw him. I still can't believe that they got away with running a D like that, but nobody scored more than 2 tds in any one game. I think most teams don't throw well enough to expose something like that. We tried throwing alot but our passing game wasnt there. I think running man takes away the uncertainty of who you cover, pre-snap they know who their man is. We ran man in playoffs last season ( 5-4, safeties man on TE, similar to you diagram) against a good passing team and their QB didn't complete a pass, we had 3 or 4 sacks also. I do think you get more picks in zone, and I know it well, and we go over it and over it but we always seem to have alot of breakdown in coverage in zone, its pretty frustrating. I know man is a bit of a gamble but until someone exposes it, which might be never, it seems too simple and effective not to run, for us anyway. I like having the CB outside the DE as extra support against the sweep/toss in a 5-3.

I think keeping it simple to learn, and to coach helps to focus on things like tackling, getting off blocks , etc. in practice. I used to be the opposite, I'd spend too much time fussing around with where guys should line up, go overboard with stunts, etc. and not spend enough time on how to play the game. I'm trying to find the right balance. Our program always gets alot of first and second year players at the 7th and 8th grade level, so keeping things easy to grip on D is important, especially because learning an offense can be alot on its own. Having some athletes helps in running man coverage, our corners are usually closer to being OLB's than they are corners, so there really isn't much difference in personnel.

After losing 2 big games in back to back years against inferior teams that averaged less than 1 yd per carry against us with kids getting lost in zone passing recivers from zone to zone we scrapped it and have run man, man free, and man under 2 for a prevent. We have had more picks and if we get beat on a pass it is generally because we got out played. We don't have to spend a ton of time teaching if he goes here you do this etc. The kids just play ball. The only issues we have had have been very early in the seaon with missing a back coming out late, like fb after off tackle play action. In our defense, if the corners are making tackles on the running game we are in trouble anyway.

Our base coverage in our 5-3 is Man-Free. I've found man to be much easier to teach and takes up a lot less practice time. We play two flavors - press and off. Off is easy and it allows our defenders to keep their eyes in the backfield to help with run support. Press is a little more time intensive, but we've found it to be a good way to take the opponent's best receivers out of the game by disrupting their rythym. We generally only press the other team's one or two best receivers. We generally also have safety help over the top.

We rarely give up big passing plays because someone blew an assignment - if they out-athlete us, so be it, but we can live with knowing we gave it our best shot. Generally, the only thing that tends to beat us in the passing game is a play-action pass to the TE - if the offense makes a good play fake, it's tought for our OLB to recognize it and get on the TE in coverage, but we still have safety help and these passes tend to only be 5-7 yard completions, so we can live with that.

I wrote a fairly detailed response to this only to lose it when I clicked "Reply to Topic." So, here is a shorter version. Our base 5-3 aligns like this against a single TE set - strong DE in a 9 tech, strong DT in a 5, nose shaded strong, weak DT in a 4i, and weak DE in a 5/ghost 7. Sam is in a 70, Mike in a 00, and Will in a 40. Presnap gap responsibilities are, from the strong side: D-DE, C-DT, B-Sam, A-Nose, Weak A-Mike, B-DT, C-DE (Will is unassigned). Post snap, on flow strong it changes to Sam takes the new gap created by the lead blocker (either a FB, WB,motion man or pulling lineman), attacking his outside shoulder, Mike checks playside B gap then plays over the top, and Will fills hard in the backside A gap. Post snap on flow weak, it changes to Will takes the new gap created by the lead blocker, attacking his outside shoulder, and Mike checks playside A gap then plays over the top. All pursuing LBs are taught to look for open windows to the backfield and take them if they show up.

DL are taught to penetrate their gap as deep as the OL's heels (about a yard), then break down and find the ball - we don't want guys penetrating 4-5 yds deep out of control, creating running lanes. DEs are generally our force defenders, but they do not box. They stay square, penetrating to about a yard deep then reading - on wide flow to, they'll get as deep as the ball and turn the ball back into the pursuit. On anything inside or away from them, they'll squeeze hard keeping their outside arm and leg free looking for boot, counter, or reverse. OLB and CB also check boot/counter/reverse on any flow away.

WRT coverage, CBs take the #1 receiver (i.e. whichever receiver is lined up closest to the sideline - it's usually a WR, but it could be a WB or TE). They'll play press against anyone that we think is any good, but off anyone that doesn't scare us (they also play off if #1 is a TE). The OLB take #2 (could be a slot, WB, TE, or RB). We flip our LB according to strength, so Will is generally the only LB out of the box in coverage, but Sam can also move out against a 2x2 spread (although we may make adjustments if we know we're going to see this and we don't like the matchup with Sam). If they line up in trips, the S takes either #2 or #3 (which we'll determine by gameplan) and Will takes the other. If they don't align in trips, Mike picks up #3 out of the backfield.

On any sprintout or wide flow action, the secondary will rotate - the playside corner will let his man go and roll up into the flat - he has latitude to go after the ball carrier/QB if he thinks he can get to him. The S rolls over and picks up the CB's man, and the backside CB abandons his man and rotates to deep middle. We don't care that his man is uncovered - we want to dare the opposition to throw back across the field, which will work out in our favor more often than not, no matter how open that man may be.

I hope that helps.