Commanders Man Coverage Variations

Breaking down the different variations of man coverages that the Commanders like to use

In the comments section of my Commanders training camp round up post, one of my readers alerted me to a recent Take Command podcast episode. In that episode, former Washington tight end Logan Paulsen was complimenting the play of the Commanders secondary in the early days of camp. Paulsen noted that there were some obvious caveats: at that point it was only a few days into camp, no pads were on yet, Terry McLaurin was holding out and Noah Brown was being slowly ramped up so not practicing every day. But even with those advantages, Paulsen said the secondary was worthy of praise for their performances so far.

But what was really of interest was when host Craig Hoffman asked Paulsen how much of the success that the secondary was having was in man coverage and how much was in zone? Paulsen replied: “A lot of man coverage, like just straight 1-Plug, 1-Lurk, 1-Rat.” The commenter on my post that alerted me to this podcast asked what all those terms meant, so I thought we could go through the different variations of man coverage that the Commanders use and what those terms mean.

Before getting into each specific coverage, it’s worth noting that all of these coverages are very similar and some are just slight variations, but they all build into a package of coverages to keep the offense honest. They all have instances where they are useful, but like all coverages, they all have weaknesses. At the core of all Cover-1 coverages is the basics. It’s a man coverage, meaning each eligible receiver is assigned a single defender, who is responsible for that receiver wherever they go. Cornerbacks will cover receivers, a safety and linebacker will cover the tight end and running back, leaving a single safety in the deep middle of the field to stay on top of everything. With the basics covered, let’s get into the variations.

Cover-1 Plug

Cover-1 Plug, often known as 1-Plug or 1-Hole is probably the most common version of Cover-1. It’s a variation built to help handle one of the biggest weaknesses of Cover-1: crossing routes. Crossing routes are notoriously hard to cover in pure man-to-man coverage because receivers often are given inside leverage and thus gain a step, at which point it becomes very hard for a defender to catch up. So to help combat that, the defense has a linebacker sit in a zone underneath and look for crossing routes.

Here’s an example of Cover-1 Plug from the Commanders game against the Cardinals early last season. It’s Cover-1, so it’s man coverage across the board with a single deep safety in the middle of the field. However, to help combat crossing routes, the Commanders also have linebacker Bobby Wagner playing as the “plugger” or “hole player”. He’s essentially in an underneath zone coverage in the middle of the field and is there to scan for crossing routes in order to cut them off.

We can see on this play, the Cardinals run a nice concept on third and short. The tight end runs a basic cross while the outside receiver motions in short before running a shallow cross. The slot receiver runs a pivot route, faking a break out to the flat before pivoting back inside towards the middle of the field. The idea of this concept is to create multiple crossing routes against man coverage while also giving a high-low read against zone coverages. You can see the issue cornerback Mike Sainristil has against the shallow cross. He’s out leveraged the moment the receiver goes in motion and never manages to get back in phase with the receiver.

If the Commanders just played pure man coverage and blitzed everyone else, that receiver would have run wide open on his shallow cross. But here, they have Wagner in the hole. He scans across the field looking for crossing routes and spots the receiver working on the shallow cross. He immediately steps up and attaches to the shallow cross, cutting off the receivers path and taking it away from the quarterback. This forces Kyler Murray to reset and work to his next option, which is the pivot route from the slot receiver. Noah Igbinoghene does a great job staying with the route and undercutting it to break up the pass, getting the Commanders off the field on third down.

In an ideal world, Sainristil would have read the crosser and signaled to Wagner to take it, before then peeling off to replace Wagner in the middle of the field and look for other crossers. But this was early in the season and Sainristil was a rookie. By the time the playoffs came around, the Commanders showed much better communication on this type of coverage, even with new pieces involved.

This is the same coverage from the Commanders, man coverage with a plugger in Bobby Wagner. But the communication is much better here, despite the fact that Marshon Lattimore, a mid-season trade acquisition, was on the field and heavily involved. You’ll notice the Lions have two separate crossing routes on this play. The first is a shallow cross from the receiver to the left, which Marshon Lattimore starts the play guarding. The second is a deeper crossing route from the tight end, which Quan Martin is responsible for. In a pure man coverage, Martin and Lattimore would have to trail their respective crossing routes and try their best to make up ground against receivers running away from them. But in this coverage variation, the Commanders are able to pass things off effectively.

You can see early after the snap, Lattimore points to his receiver and yells across to Wagner, communicating the shallow cross is coming his way and for Wagner to pick it up. Wagner gets the communication and steps up to match that shallow cross, taking it away. Meanwhile, Lattimore sinks back to replace Wagner’s role as the plugger. As he does this, he spots the tight end crossing from the other side of the field, so Lattimore takes over that route and leaves Quan Martin to become the plugger in the middle of the field.

Unfortunately, Igbinoghene loses his one-on-one against Amon-Ra St. Brown on a wheel route outside and that’s where the ball goes, but you can see how effective the coverage can be when communicated well. It requires the whole unit to be on the same page, because if just one player is off then a receiver can run wide open for a huge gain, but the upside is there if the players can communicate well.

Cover-1 Robber

Cover-1 Robber, sometimes known as 1-Robber or 1-Rat, is a similar idea to 1-plug, but the hole player comes from a different spot. Instead of a linebacker sinking back into an underneath zone, the defense will typically start with a two-deep safety look pre-snap, helping disguise their intent, before rotating the safeties at the snap of the ball. One safety will rotate back to the deep middle, while the other safety will step up underneath as the “robber” or “rat”.