Bud Carson, 1979—Interesting Cover-3 Rotation

 By John Turney

A few years ago we posted about Bud Carson and his Cover-2 which was the predecessor to what is referred to now as "Tampa-2" and gave a couple of examples of the coverage including an inverted Cover-2. 

Today we thought we'd show a twist on Cover-3 he ran in 1979—

This version of Cover-3 was run with nickel personnel and from a pressure look with the nickel safety (Eddie Brown) at the line of scrimmage and the strong safety five yards off the ball.

The defensive formation was not unusual for the Rams' nickel defense that year. Jack Reynolds would leave the field and was replaced by Eddie Brown who'd play free safety (usually but not always--see Super Bowl IV) and Nolan Cromwell would play the third corner spot, either in the slot or like he is here outside. He'd also play in the middle when they ran a Cover-2 from nickel.

Here is one of the times he played outside and the right cornerback is in the slot and the left cornerback is in his usual spot.

What we like here is because of the safety is so close to the line and the Rams not playing man, as is so often the case with a blitz, they drop out of the blitz but neither of the safeties can get to the coverage Carson wants -- 3-deep  -- so the slot corner, Rod Perry, rotates there.

Here are a couple of stills—

It is always kind of fun to look back and see coaches like Carson doing things that are still being done now and this was a pretty god example of that.