How to Play Bracket Coverage
7 min readBracket Coverage Out of Cover 2 and Man Free with Coach Schuman
describe how to bracket and the thought process that goes into bracket coverage and how it can help a defense stop the other teams best wr.
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Good afternoon I wanted to go over today We're over bracketing so I'm gonna set Up some different coverages for you and We're gonna go through bracketing take a Look at at some of these things so we Have understanding of what exactly Bracketing is but the deposition of Bracketing coverage is basically you Have one person that plays one Responsibility whether it is Amanda man Or a zone and the other player is Responsible for helping with that Defender so bracketing can be done Numerous different ways first I'm going To do is how you can bracket out of Cover to through zone which is not often Use most the time people bracket they Bracket through main coverage but here We're going to show you first a little Bit how you can do it through zone so I'm saying the the first way you could Do it is any kind of help coverage so if We won the form bracket out of the out Of cover to the responsibility from one Of the fenders is gonna have to come off From another defender and then go and Play that coverage so if we want that a Bracket on the the flat area most of the Time we're gonna do from bracket seven We're gonna utilize the safety so if We're gonna bracket the flat area Normally our free safeties read here if We help at the right corner as free Safeties read is once he gives one pass
Read in cover two he's reading number Two to see what other responsibilities Is gonna have to happen and who's gonna Show up in his area from a half the Field standpoint so from a practical Standpoint if we're bracketing the flat Area that means that we've identified We've identified a player as someone That we want to bracket it so if we want The bracket this number one receiver Here we would then essentially roll up And then play inside out in bracket Coverage helping in the curl flair now What essentially happens is when you're Playing bracket we would call this like A bracket roll three We're rolling our coverage down to two Thirds and we're going in we're helping With the flat area so he's going to help With the flat area he's gonna roll his Coverage his cover two and this this Corner will the roll is coverage back so We're all markers I think I said thirds I mean to have to feel so we will have a Situation now where we're rolling our Coverage to still take care of cover two And we're in a bracket to situation okay What we can also do is we can bracket we Can bracket into free okay out of it so For bracketing the flat we could play a A hybrid freak free coverage with Everything zone underneath where we're Gonna play inside out here he works at The center of the field and now
Everybody's playing their normal Responsibilities we're still taking care Of up high but we want to make sure we Do is we associate our blitzes when the Areas that we're gonna brackets be able To get help okay well the common way out Of this to be able to help would be if We have responsibility that's one way to Do it not usually a sound but what does A little bit more sound as if we want to Get the responsibility of a defender That is in an area that is not often Thrown to by by the by the the offense Okay so one good example is out of cover To Tampa to essentially the middle Linebacker drops straight back it allows The free safeties Safety's to be able to get even more With and necessary and they're dropping Into the hole for any kind of post so That's one form Tampa two is essentially A defense that allows the mic to drop Into the post area which almost makes it Form into thirds but it really is a Practical and then you could utilize Your salmon will to bracket so if you Want to you say that hey this team Doesn't do a great job of going and you Know throwing in the slant areas they Like to do this kind of combination That's their deal okay well maybe you Can go and form some sort of bracket Coverage and cover to here or you can You get some of this kind of situation
Where he's got to go and play you've got An issue with playing the the fade and You could play cover to is almost Becomes a cover for type situation but This guy now helps carry the number two Receiver so that's another way that you Could play that form bracketing okay now I'll show you real quick alright so now What we'll do is we'll do a bracket out Of man free so man free coverage okay Each person is manned up across the Board and what would happen in the Bracket situation here is one of the People who do not have responsibility For a defender I mean I offensive player Will then essentially bracket their Coverage so what we do here if we're Looking and we're in an empty set for Example and we want to bracket let's say The number two receiver okay we can Bracket that person with the free safety Where he can essentially on movements Start to move towards that coverage Responsibility and what will happen is The Nickelback here will essentially Play out And the free safety play inside and no Matter where they go they are playing Man the man both players on that Offensive player that's bracketing this Is how you take care of it And man freight any player that you Designate is a player that you're gonna Bracket is the player that you want to
Go and take your free safety with now We've played bracket L with our with our Linebackers and you could do that your The best way to do that is to take away In inside receiver it's much more Difficult for them to get to an outside Receiver but to play in inside receivers A lot easier so if you you want to Bracket with the linebacker you call Bracket OB or some sort of color or Something man free bracket bracket lb or Bracket – lb you then take this Sam Linebacker was no responsibility right Now Now he's bracketing the number two Receiver now what's different I think With bracketing with the linebacker Versus bracketing with a free Safety's I'm not totally sold that that that Linebacker will be able to stay with Them so one of the things that you want To do if you bracket outside of inside You have to be really really cognizant The fact that the Sam may not be as good As your your Nickelback in coverage so They you have to understand that where Your help is from that standpoint So in man free your help is the free Safety inside but he may be declared Somewhere else what you want to make Sure that you do is that if you're Playing him inside out that his Responsibility is to be more physical And his responsibility is to run so when
You get coverage standpoint as they're Coming up his job would be that would be The jam and be hands on and then hit Then the Nickelback job is to run okay And that way he could play his normal Coverage that's another way to do it There's a lot of ways to skin the cat on On bracket coverage Those those are a couple ways to do it Obviously if we were too high in some Sort of to man coverage situation we'll Have two we could have a double bracket On if we really wanted to take away Their best receiver the negatives of Bracketing is you lose run support so You lose run support from your free Safety or a linebacker do you take when You go in your bracket you lose that one Support but it's very good in third and Long situations or third down situations Where you know they're gonna go their Best receiver or you get in a passing Situation where you know the team is Going to pass and they they have a Receiver that is superior from an Athletic standpoint so that's just a Couple ways that you could play back Your coverage and see us again soon at Coach Schumann on Twitter hit me up or You can always subscribe on YouTube
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