Gus Glossary: Cover One Robber
Indianapolis Colts' Defensive Coordinator Gus Bradley has built a reputation as being a coach that primarily calls cover-three. While I do tend to push back on the narrative that his defense is a simplistic cover-three defense, I won't argue that this zone-match call is typically his coverage of choice.
Contrary to popular belief though, Bradley does like to mix in a fair amount of man coverage. Even with his young secondary in Las Vegas a year ago, Bradley found ways to mix in man coverage calls that didn't stress his defense too much.
One of those plays is something called Cover One Robber. In today's film room, I break down this coverage call and talk about why it could be utilized much more efficiently with the Colts in 2022.
What is Cover One Robber
Once you understand what a robber is in man coverage, this play design becomes very easy to read/understand. Bleacher Report's Matt Bowen breaks it down well in an article he wrote back in 2014:
In “Robber” coverage, think of Cover 1 assignments with the strong safety dropping down into the hole. This allows defenses to disguise their looks (usually done from a Cover 2 shell) and eliminate inside crossing concepts.
The main goal of Cover One Robber is to play man coverage across the board. The free safety drifts back into the deep middle of the field, while the strong safety comes down as the hole defender over the middle.
The players in man coverage are tasked with playing outside leverage. This means that the man defenders are shading the outside shoulder of the receivers, therefor forcing them to either break inside (where the strong safety robber is) or work like crazy to break to the outside.
Here is how the play looks in diagram form:
Now, let's look at a clip of this play. The Raiders are playing against the Miami Dolphins on this play below. The strong safety drops down and occupies the hole zone on the weakside of the formation. The deep safety shifts back over the top while shading the side of the field with three receivers.
The corner at the top of the screen is playing outside leverage on the tight end. If the tight end breaks to the inside, that corner will stay in the back hip pocket of the tight end and run him into the safety robber over the middle. That is exactly what happens on this play.
The tight end breaks inside and the robber jumps on the route. The quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, is forced to hold onto the ball and scramble for a short gain as a result.
How It Works in Gus Bradley's Defense
Cover One Robber is actually a great disguise defense for teams that like to sit in a two-deep shell. Offenses will get a pre-snap read of two-high safeties and then be caught off guard by one dropping down as the hole defender. This defensive call also works well with Gus Bradley's single-high tendencies, though.
When teams line up against a Gus Bradley defense, they expect the strong safety to come down in the box. Due to how often he calls cover-three, teams will see this and expect the call to be a simply cover-three call. When Bradley mixes a man-robber call in, it muddies the post-snap reads for the offense.
This clip below is a good example of what I'm talking about. The Raiders are lined up in what appears to be their typical cover-three defense, with the strong safety creeping down into the box from a two-high look. Chicago Bears' quarterback Justin Fields reads this and identifies a favorable match-up on the backside of the 3X1 formation.
With this being a robber call, though, that backside cornerback is playing outside leverage. That corner's entire job is to funnel the route inside and make life difficult for his receiver if the receiver wants to break outside. So, when that backside receiver runs a deep out route, that corner playing in outside leverage is in perfect position to disrupt the route timing.
Even to the strong side, the Raiders have this play covered up. The strong safety sits in the hole and covers up the potential spacing route on the play side.
Why This Call Will Be More Prevalent in Indy
For all of the, relative, success that the Raiders' defense had a year ago, the personnel in the secondary was tough to be unique with. Bradley had two safeties that were clearly defined as a strong safety and free safety (Johnathan Abram was only effective in the box and Tre'von Moehrig was much better when deep). He also had a cornerback room that was either extremely young/inexperienced (Nate Hobbs) or older/had lost a step (Casey Hayward/Desmond Trufant).
This isn't to say that these players were bad, by any means, but it is hard to trust those players in anything but shell cover-three looks. The Colts, however, have a much stronger secondary this year that the Raiders did a year ago.
The Colts have former DPOY Stephon Gilmore along with 2021 Pro Bowler Kenny Moore II at corner. The safeties (Nick Cross, Julian Blackmon, and Rodney McLeod) are all versatile enough to play as the robber underneath or as the deep center fielder over the top.
The talent and versatility that the Colts have in their secondary will allow Bradley to be a bit more experimental with his calls in 2022. He can disguise his looks much easier with this defense, and as a result, mix in more man and trap coverages this year.
The Raiders' defense played well this past season, but the Colts have the personnel to really excel in play calls like this one in 2022:
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