Defensive Basics

We've discussed in the past the 3-2 and 4-1 defenses in some detail, but today I wanted to give a quick rundown of each as well as some pointers for defensive play in general. This is primarily aimed at newer teams and players, but there are plenty of experienced players that might be able to use a refresher! The 3-2 and 4-1 defenses are the most commonly played defenses in most 6-on-6 flag leagues. They are both zone defenses and allow defenders to concentrate on covering an area rather than a specific player and also allow the defender to keep their eye on the QB to read where they are looking. This is because they don't need to watch the player they would be covering if they were in man to man defense and instead they are just keeping an eye on a zone in front of them, always looking in towards the QB. In both defenses, the first number (3 and 4) indicates how many defenders will be staying to cover short passes and the second number (2 and 1) indicate how many safeties will be covering deep passes. The 3-2 is very simple with 3 defenders covering the left, middle, and right sides of the field up to about 5 yards deep and 2 defenders covering deep passes on either half of the field split down the middle. The key thing here is distances. The left and right short defenders need to stay at about 3 to 5 yards off the line of scrimmage. Never more than 7! If you are behind the rusher bag, you are way too deep! These players really need to just do their job and respect their safeties and let them do their job. If someone runs past you and you're one of the short defenders, let them go! Look for another receiver crossing into your zone and if there aren't any then watch for the run. The middle short defender in 3-2 should be about 5-7 yards deep, starting a bit shorter and fading back as the play develops. Again, the key is not to go too deep! For the safeties, they need to start not too deep (you want to at least pretend you're covering the intermediate passes), but once you decide to drop deep, do not slow down! Drop as hard and fast as you can and if the ball goes your way, run to it like you're the receiver. That ball is as much yours as it is the receivers! In 4-1, you have 4 short defenders and one safety, but you actually sort of have 2 short and 3 safeties. In this defense, your single true safety should start somewhat deep and their job is to be near the middle of the field so they can potentially get to a deep pass anywhere on the field. The 4 short players should be divided 2 and 2 on either side of the center, but one of these players on either side is actually locking on anyone who goes deep on their side of center. These players have to be very athletic as they start in short coverage, but need to be able to go deep quickly if needed. They should essentially play man to man on any receiver that runs deep on their side of the field. The 2 other defenders of the 4 short players need to play very short. 2-5 yards off the line of scrimmage. They must remember that there are potentially only 2 of them guarding short passes across the entire field, so they must not drop at all! The advantages of the 3-2 defense are that it is simple (just cover your area, that's it) and it does a good job of covering a lot of the field. The major disadvantage is that it is easy for the offense to outnumber defenders either short or long since you have a set number of each, so if a team runs all hooks (all receivers running 5 yard hooks) you'll have 3 defenders trying to cover 5 receivers. The advantages of a 4-1 defense are that you potentially have a lot of coverage either short or long as needed, but the disadvantage is that you need very athletic players who can cover anyone on the other team man to man. In 4-1 you can also play "soft" locks which means the locking players will favour deep passes (meaning, they play a little deeper and don't bite on hooks or other short routes and instead settle for making the tackle after the catch), but this starts to have the same disadvantages of a 3-2 defense. You can occasionally sprinkle in man to man defense, but I really don't recommend doing it often unless your team is as fast or faster than the other team across the board. It's good to use once in a while to keep a QB guessing, but man to man is very easy to beat with crossing routes and double moves if you do it too often. And that's really one of the main things you need to do on defense: mix it up. Keep your defenses simple so that you can change what defense you are in from play to play. You should always know who your safeties, locks, and short coverage players are in 3-2 and 4-1 so you can switch in a moment. As you gain experience you can change things up (having different players lock in 4-1 or shifting coverage in 3-2), but just changing the defensive call from play to play will work wonders all by itself in the lower divisions. One final tip is that you should try to not always start where you are going to end up. What I mean by this is before the ball is snapped you should not be in the area where you are going to cover on every play. If you're a safety, start close and drop hard at the snap. If you're short right, float around the center and then push out at the snap. You can have your team always line up in 4-1 and then either stay in 4-1 or switch to 3-2 at the snap (or vice versa) so the QB can never be sure what defense you are actually in. Quarterback's do a huge amount of their decision making before the ball is snapped based on where the defenders are, so surprise them once in a while and suddenly be somewhere else after the snap! If you're interested in more articles on playing the game, let us know on our Facebook page and we'll be sure to write more.