Thursday, October 5, 2023

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.  

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing! It brought back some great memories. Coach Carson’s invert adjustment put a faster player in deep half coverage (cornerback) and a more physical player (safety) in a run support position.

    It was (and still is) a great idea, especially on a college field with the hash marks further apart. Bud Carson was a fantastic defensive coach who innovated some great defensive adjustments and pressure calls during his era. Best wishes for a great day and may God bless!
    ---Mike E.

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    1. Thanks. Carson's doing inverted coverages back in the day have never been written about. Now, you see it all the time.

      All that has been covered is his Cover-2 and Dungy taking concepts from him. Carson running it out of sub and doing his variations is what is interesting and worthy of fun discussions.

      Since you worked with Dungy and Kiffin you obviously know all this and why it matters -- and the misnomer that those guys weren't Cover-3 guys on run downs (covered that a couple of years ago) and the things they did out of that that were innovative.

      The little details that you point out along with the all-22 show the nuance of things that Carson did probably before everyone else.

      Not sure if you saw the Tampa-2 zone blitz look I posted a while back that the Browns did in 1951. Makes me wonder where Carson got his ideas -- everyone gets things from somewhere. Just like Dungy got his stuff from Carson and made his tweaks Carson maybe made tweaks to things he'd seen and innovated from there.

      There are always more layers to an onion to look at.

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  2. I have read things like "The Pro Style" (a book) and "Pro!" magazines from the seventies and they never mentioned any "inverted" cover twos which looks like it means a CB plays back instead of up? Something like that?

    Good stuff.

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    1. Inverted Tampa-2 doesn't have any one definition, it's just something that says it's not the safeties playing the 1/2s and a linebacker in the hole.

      In the above example it's the safety in the hole and a cornerback and safety in the deep 1/2s

      Other times you can see a 3-deep presnap look, and the middle of field safety drops to the hole so the two outside deep guys that looked like they had deep 1/3s have deep 1/2s post snap and the MOF safety has the hole.

      That can work out of 3-sky, 3-cloud, 3-buzz, the differences being who the inital deep three are and who would have the flats in the underneath coverages.

      Or it can be both cornerbacks taking the deep 1/2s and the designated MLB (could be a S if sub defense) dropping to the hole.

      My opinion is that it refers to anything that is not the conventional Tampa-2 where the cornerbacks have flats, safeties have deep 1/2s and MLBer has hole and Sam and Will have hook/curl. But doesn't include a nickel where maybe Will has the hole and the nickel has one of the h/c or even one of the flats.

      So yeah, in general, you understand it right "inverting" the safeties' and the cornerbacks' responsibilites on one or both sides of the defenses.

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    2. O.K. I apprecate the answer. Very interesting stuff.

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