A Clip of Bud Carson's Inverted 'Tampa' Cover-2

 By John Turney  

Bud Carson

A couple of years ago we posted about Bud Carson and his role in popularizing Cover-2, especially the kind of cover-2 that has a middle linebacker in the middle zone, not referred to as Tampa-2.

Referring back to the post here is a clip and a still of the Tampa-2 look in a 1979 game against the New York Giants. 

Final assignments Tampa-2 out of Rams' nickel package with Nolan Cromwell in the "hole"

Drops for Carson's Cover-22

The Rams nickel package included safety Eddie Brown replacing middle linebacker Jack Reynolds so the Rams went with three safeties on passing downs. The slot corner was Nolan Cromwell in most situations. 

However, in what Carson called Cover-22 he was essentially the middle linebackers taking the "hole" in the Tampa-2 coverage with the safeties, Brown and starter Dave Elmendorf taking the deep halves.

Then sometimes there was a twist to what Carson did and here is a look at one of them. Here the Rams ran an inverted or "non-traditional" Tampa-2—

Inverted Cover-2

In the above clip, the Rams are in base defense and run Cover-2 but in this case, the free safety rotates to the middle or "hole" from the right hash and the right cornerback takes the deep 1/2 in an inverted Tampa-2 look. The MIKE (Mac in Rams' terminology), rather than taking the "hole" takes the right hook/curl -- he actually takes the fullback pretty aggressively. 

The LLB (Stub) has the left hook/curl. He passes the tight end off rather than "latch" or cover him, he left to be picked up by Cromwell.

This clip and the stills show why Tampa-2 is considered in the Cover-3 family, or as Tony Dungy has called it "Cover 2-1/2" since it is three deep but one of the three deep is between the first and second level of zones. It's just not a pure two-deep zone.

These days teams run this on occasion. We cannot say routinely but it is part of their repertoire—used to play what they want from a disguise and have someone different people in different places to mess up the quarterback's reads.

But this is ahead of its time and it was not talked about or didn't appear in coaching books of that era. The films seem to show Carson got the jump on his fellow coaches. 

Two stills from the clip:

Final responsibilities 

The rotation - not common in the late 1970s

The Rams ran a lot of things in the Carson era usually Cover-3 on likely run downs, just like most of the so-called Tampa-2 teams. They'd play Cover-3 first then if they got them in a 3rd and long (sometimes 2nd and long) they'd use the Tampa-2. 

Same with Carson way back when. 

Of course, the Dungy/Kiffin/Lovie Smith group pretty much stayed with Tampa-2 on passing downs while Carson varied his approaches. 

Sometimes it'd be one of these Cover-2 coverages, and sometimes he'd blitz with man coverage. Against the Seahawks in 1979 there was plenty of Cover-0 with blitzes, for one example.

Nolan Cromwell would usually be the chess piece. 

He was a free safety in the base defense but would play slot in nickel if it was man or 2-man but if it was Cover-22 he was the MIKE. He'd also be the MIKE in other coverages as well.

There were few games in 1979 when Cromwell was a pure CB but that was just because of injury to the starters--not because that was part of any packages on those days. Later in Cromwell's career -- under Fritz Shurmur -- Cromwell would play dime linebacker, adding that to his repertoire.

So, the main takeaway of this post is to reiterate are that Tampa-2 was not used in Tampa first. It was in Pittsburgh where Tony Dungy learned it. Another is Bud Carson ran at least a form of inverted Tampa-2 in the late 1970s.