A Bit More On The Cover 2

Okay...here’s something that’s just odd. The Colts are dead last in the league in rush defense at 165.4 yards per game. The Titans are a tad better at 163.5 rush yards given up per game. The next team up the list is NYJ, which is giving up 143 yards per game on the ground.

Give that one a second to sink in. The rush defense of the Colts isn’t just bad; it’s catastrophically bad - except that the catastrophe of actually losing a game has not yet occurred, technically speaking (although the Tennessee game sure felt like a loss).

By contrast, the Colts - are you ready for this? - are third in the league in passing yards given up per game. Only Oakland and Chicago are giving up fewer yards in the air than are the Colts. Yeah...Oakland. I’m not kidding.

I talked about this a bit last night in my aside to Shane commenting on his comment that he was frustrated with Tony Dungy’s Tampa Cover 2 scheme in view of the fact that the Colts are giving up so many yards on the ground. I’m thinking about it a little bit more now, and now I’m starting to believe that Dungy is actually planning his defense KNOWING that the opposing tailback is going to have a great day against the Colts. Then he locks down everything else in terms of defense, gives the ball to Manning, and asks him to win the game.

I really hate to go the NBA for an analogy here, but it fits. This is the same kind of defensive scheme you would use if you were playing, say, the Cavaliers. You know LeBron James is going to get his points, and you know you can’t stop it, no matter what kind of defense you throw at them. So, instead of trying to stop something you know can’t be stopped, you make your guys focus on stopping everything else - in effect, you tell your guys to force LeBron James, by himself, to beat your whole team.

By giving up the rush defense, Tony Dungy is basically daring each opponent’s tailback to beat Peyton Manning one on one. I was a long time coming to this conclusion, and probably would not have made it at all until I looked at the stats tonight on ESPN’s web site. On the main stats page, you will find six different categories, three each on offense and defense, that give you the top five guys in each category for the whole league. On offense, the categories are quarterback rating, rushing yards, and receiving yards. On defense, the categories are tackles, sacks, and interceptions.

It will not - or should not, at any rate - surprise you to see Peyton Manning leading the league in quarterback rating; it should also not surprise you to see both Marvin Harrison AND Reggie Wayne in the top five in receiving yards; what will surprise you is to see that the top two guys in tackles are Cato June and Gary Brackett, both Colts linebackers.

Yeah...you read that right; the two guys with the most tackles in the whole league are part of the atrocious Colts rush defense. What in the world could this possibly mean? The Colts are making tackles, but still giving up tons of yards on the ground. Yep...that’s what it means.

So why is that? It’s because the Colts have done so much to perfect their pass rush over the years, and the two key components to that are Dwight Freeney and the Cover 2.

(Okay, okay - what the hell is the Cover 2, right? It’s a defensive scheme that focuses on pass defense rather than rush defense. A normal defensive scheme has four defensive linemen at the line of scrimmage to collide with the opponent’s offensive linemen, who are trying to make holes for the tailback and protecting the quarterback. The linebackers are a second layer of defense against the run, there to stop a squeaky tailback who gets past the defensive linemen. The third layer of defense against the run is the strong safety, a defensive back who plays behind the linebackers but not all the way out in the open field. That’s where the free safety is, a defensive back who plays more like a cornerback, and whose job it is to guard the middle part of the open field against long passes over the middle. In the Cover 2, the strong safety drops back into deep pass coverage with the free safety, with the hope that his presence takes away a receiving option for the quarterback. The quarterback, on pass plays, takes three quick looks, first at his number one receiver, then at his number two receiver, then at either his number three receiver or his pass-catching tight end. An extra defensive back on one of those options should force the quarterback to take extra time in the pocket - which should allow a good defensive end enough time to get around the offensive tackle and make a beeline at the quarterback. If the quarterback gets a pass off, the extra defensive back is another body out there in the open field who can pull down an interception; if the quarterback can’t get a pass off, then he is flushed out of the pocket by the defensive end and is either sacked for forced to throw the ball away or throw a screen pass to his tailback, who is by now out in the flat, and hopefully aware of the busted play.)

(The Tampa Cover 2 differs slightly from the standard Cover 2 - in the Tampa scheme, a linebacker drops into the defensive backfield - where the strong safety would ordinarily have been - and roams around there. I suspect that Tampa used Derrick Brooks for this role, and that the reason the Colts don't use the Tampa Cover 2 is because they have never had a linebacker who was as talented as Brooks.)

You can see the problem now, right? A good Cover 2 leaves the open field behind the linebackers even more open, and when a tailback gets through the linebackers, he can get a lot of yards before someone can catch up to him. That’s one of the reasons that an effective Cover 2 should also utilize the blitz, which crowds the line of scrimmage and should shore up the holes a tailback might squeak through - and puts even more pressure on the quarterback.

The Cover 2, then, is actually little more than a fairly sophisticaed prevent defense - which is a scheme that gives up ten or less yards and tries not to give up big plays or scores - that is also designed to generate turnovers. But it asks a lot of linebackers, who have to cover more of the field behind the line of scrimmage because of the absence of the strong safety. This is the weakness in the Colts rush defense - and it has not been helped by the loss of a talented linebacker in each of the last three offseasons.

But if you think about it...maybe that’s part of the plan - they let the talented linebacker go before they have to pay him more than they can afford, because they know the rush defense is not going to be their strong suit, and that leaves more money for shoring up the offense and the defensive line and the special teams.

And so the plan, then, has always been this - to give up the rush yards because they know they have no choice, and then go out and do everything else as best they can; and that has always meant handing the ball to Peyton Manning and asking him to win the game.

One of the reasons that that plan has failed in the past is because Manning has always been too hard on himself and always had a hard time bouncing back from mistakes. But there is something different in his eyes this year. And it seems to me that his release has gotten sharper and his arm has gotten stronger - he’s throwing the fast, precise kinds of passes this year that Dan Marino used to throw.

And maybe...just maybe...it has something to do with Edgerrin James not being in the backfield with Manning. You always heard Manning talk about how close he and James were, and how well they meshed on the field -and last year James proved that he could shoulder the workload and carry the team, since opposing defenses were so focused on Manning and preventing him from throwing 49 touchdowns like he did in 2004.

But you know what? Even with all of that, you have to concede that Edgerrin James was never really a team player. This is the guy who would go back to Miami every summer to work out, the guy who never came to summer school, the guy who was very vocal about his dislike for preseason games - the guy who was, basically, the antithesis of Manning, who might be the best prepared player who has ever suited up in the National Football League.

And you’ll never hear Manning say it in public, and probably never in private, either, but it had to frustrate him that James wasn’t always around, wasn’t always on the same page as the rest of the team; but James is gone now, presumably enjoying the climate in Arizona and doing his best to come to terms with the fact that the Cardinals are simply one of the worst organizations in major league professional sports. The L.A. Clippers, from time to time, make the playoffs. The Detroit Tigers lost 119 games three years ago, yet managed to thrash the Yankees this year before losing to the Cardinals in the World Series. The Arizona Cardinals just suck. They hired Dennis Green - WILLINGLY - as their head coach. What does that say about their commitment to winning?

Anyway, here’s my point - Cato June and Gary Brackett are leading the league in tackles, which means that the rush defense, though porous, is not giving up touchdowns. What they are doing is letting opposing teams stay on the field just long enough that our offense gets a rest. I’m also not saying that they are givng up yards on purpose; I have no doubt that these cats are doing their best every week. I just don’t think the defensive scheme is set up in a way that gives them the tools they need to succeed.

This is a team game, though; and if one part of the team has to take a bullet for the good of the squad, then maybe that just has to be. Maybe it also means that people talk about the rush defense to the point of forgetting to talk about the fact that Manning is on his way to a third MVP award. Maybe the rush defense is there to shrug the way Atlas did, to take the pressure off of Manning, and to actually be a key component to the undefeated machine that is this year’s Colts team. Maybe it’s all part of a grand plan that has slowly, but surely, come to fruition. Maybe this year is the year.

Regardless, do this for me: next time you watch a Colts game, keep your eyes on Manning’s eyes, all game, and tell me what you see there. Do you see the same guy who used to look like he would burst into tears if he threw a pick? The guy who would berate himself for missing a wide open receiver when he ran a botched stretch play instead? You won’t see that guy. What you will see is the look of a cat who knows he’s the best player on the field, the best player in the whole fucking league, come to that.

Peyton Manning has always been told that he’s the best player in the league, that he’s the guy you build teams around, that he’s the guy dads want their kids to play like in Pop Warner. The difference this year is that he believes it.