Cover 4 Friday: 12 Personnel

TE/Wing Combo
This article is a part of the new”Cover 4 Friday” off-season series, which
focuses on defending a new formation each week using Press Quarters
coverage. To get a proper introduction to our Cover 4 system and our most
basic coverage checks, donʼt forget to download my free e-book, “10
Reasons to Build Your Defense Around Press Cover 4,” by clicking here or
by filling out the form on the sidebar.

This weekʼs topic in Cover 4 Friday focuses on defending possibly my

favorite personnel grouping in all of football: 1 back + 2 tight ends, or “12
personnel.”

It can be argued that 12 personnel groupings might be the hardest

personnel grouping to defend in football because of the run/pass balance it
presents: 8 immediate gaps and 4 vertical threats. It requires the opposing
defense to be equally balanced in being able to handle those threats, which
is something that Cover 4 does quite well.

Specifically today, we are going to look at a common 12 personnel formation

that really stresses the balance of a defense by placing both tight end
bodies (one being an off the line H-back) on one side of the formation,
opposite of the 2-speed side.
Whatever you want to call it, this formation puts 5 gaps to the strength
while forcing an overhang to remove himself from the run box and apex to
the 2 speed side. In the diagram above, I have the QB aligned in the gun
with the back set away from the strength, but you will see multiple backfield
alignments out of this depending on what the offense wants to do.

Primarily, this formation is heavily suited to traditional Wing-T style gap

scheme runs like Trap, Power, Buck Sweep, and Wing Counter. Where this
formation can really make itʼs money in high school football though is if the
QB is a runner, which essentially creates another gap to defend. Now the
offense has Power Read (to either side) and QB Iso to the open B-gap to
make the numbers game even harder on the defense.

Letʼs get in to how we would approach our defensive game plan for the
week out of our base Cover 4 defense.

Setting the Front

In an even front defense itʼs pretty cut and dry where you are going to set
your strength, but you need to decide how you are going to leverage your
strong-side defensive end.

Whenever we encounter a 12 personnel TE/Wing combo with an added E-

gap, we prefer to put our end in a “tight 9” on the outside eye of the tight
end to make him a D-gap player. This often forces the wing to down block
on the Buck Sweep, but the tight 9 alignment also allows your end to do his
most important job: NOT LET the tight end climb to your playside
linebacker. If your end can mash their tight end down into the line of
scrimmage on any down block, you allow your linebackers to scrape and
run. A natural scrape exchange happens where your LB overlaps your end,
as pictured below.

As an alternative, you could align your DE head up and make him a C-gap
player. This will be most effective at keeping the TE from climbing to the
second level, but now allows the TE to hook your end and get the wing to
the second level. In my opinion, this makes it easier for the offense to get 1
blocker on 1 defender and gain a numbers advantage. If our defensive end
was flat out better than their kid at TE then we might align head up, but I
prefer the tight 9.

In addition to your standard 1-technique and 3-technique defensive tackles,

you can also play some games in tagging their techniques to be 2iʼs and/or
4iʼs, respectively. Our “G” call (which we use a lot in defending trips and
zone-heavy teams) puts our nose into a 2i keying the inside knee of the
guard, instead of keying the center in his normal 1-technique. It is great
against weak-side run, but a bit weaker against the strong-side run.

Similarly, our “I” call puts the 3-technique into a 4i on the inside knee of the
tackle. It is great against strong-side run, especially Power and Buck Sweep
with the tackle blocking down, but is specifically very weak against the
Trap. There is always a trade-off.

We use “G” a lot more often than we do “I” (thereʼs rarely a reason to call
both at once, though I suppose you could), but both are simple tags that
you can use situationally to give your front a little bit of a different look.

Cover 4 Checks vs. 12 Personnel

One of the greatest benefits to Quarters, as I wrote about in my e-book, is
that you rarely (if ever) change your keys and reads from week to week. You
install your checks in camp, and then use them as necessary in your game
prep.

There is nothing exotic about what Cover 4 checks to play against this type
of 12 personnel formation. We are going to use our zero removed receivers
“Cloud” check to the TE/Wing side, and our base “Money” check to the 2-
speed side.

“Money” is our basic Press Quarters check that has the corner in press man
against #1 with the safety and overhang LB bracket covering #2. “Money”
tells our overhang (who we call our Moneys) to keep his outside shoulder
free against the run, with the safety playing crack/replace.

“Cloud” is what we use against zero removed receivers, which we have in

this case with the TE/Wing combo. Our corner turns his hips 45 degrees to
the sideline, keeps his outside arm free against the run, and will slow pedal
as he gathers his read from #1, taking him vertical if necessary. The safety
reads #2, is the deep 1/2 player and alley filler against the run, while the LB
walls off the middle of the field and spills any pullers.

Last week I introduced our “X Out” check (traveling the corner over) for
defending zero removed receiver sets in 11 or 12 personnel, but itʼs only
truly sound against closed formations with a single eligible receiver. Against
a TE/Wing combo what you gain in the run game by Xʼing out the widest
eligible receiver (an added LB and safety to the weakside run box) is
cancelled by what you lose (a force player to the strongside – not good).
The offense has you gapped out to the strength.

You could kick your linebackers over and down to play a “Heavy Over” front
if you were insistent on playing “X Out” against all zero removed receiver
sets, but I just threw up in my mouth a little bit thinking about teaching all of
that. Just stick with playing your base “Cloud” check.

For a more detailed look at our Cover 4 system, check out the e-book. Itʼs
free to download.

Notes:
I could write a thesis-sized article about alignments, run fits, and specific
reads and keys every time we do this, but I want to keep these as short and
simple as possible. Here are a couple of quick hitters for some questions I
think some people would have:

Our linebacker reads shift week to week from reading linemen or

reading the backfield, depending on what the offense majors in. If what
was a great read one week is a crappy read the next week, we wonʼt
stick with it just for the sake of consistency. In our “base” reads, our
Mike almost always reads linemen/guards, while our outside guys read
backs when theyʼre out in space and guards/tackles when theyʼre in
the box.
Quarters changes very, very little if you want to run an odd front. Itʼs all
personnel. Kick your 3 best defensive linemen head up, 2 of your LBʼs
into 30 shades, and your other 2 remaining bodies (1 DE and 1 LB) are
now your overhang guys. The coverage checks all remain the same.
Thereʼs more to it than that obviously with the run fits, but play with it
on paper.
The difference in Cover 4 run fits between a 4-2-5 and a 4-3 is that the
overhang player (often called the strong safety in a 4-2-5) is not
responsible for a run gap when he has 2 removed receivers. One inside
LB (usually still called the Mike) is always a two-gapper in the 4-2-5. In
the 4-3, the weak-side overhang is responsible for a gap when he has
2 removed receivers, while the Mike is only really ever a 2-gapper
against 2 tight end formations. If that doesnʼt make sense, the short
answer is that there is really only a difference in alignment, not
responsibility.
To the point above, “gap responsibility” is one of the most overrated
and over-coached aspects of linebacker play. Burying your head into a
pre-determined gap might work some of the time, but this game is too
dynamic and happens too fast for that to always be correct.
Linebackers are meant to run and fill daylight, not be straight-ahead
robots.
Thatʼs all Iʼve got for this week coaches. With the 4th of July being past us,
football season is right around the corner. As always, I hope that No Ceilings
Football can help in some small way to benefit you and your team.

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If you have questions, please e-mail me any time at

kurt@noceilingsfootball.com or shoot me a tweet/message. I love
interacting with fellow coaches, and will get back to you as soon as I can.

Happy coaching!

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