Drills Report: Murray State’s Defensive Back Press Man Coverage

As defensive back coaches, we often teach our athletes to do things that are unnatural to them and are against what their instincts tell them to do. We tell them to not to follow their key inside if they are a flat defender, do not jump a route that sits in front of them if you are a vertical defender, do not jump a deep crossing route if you are half-field player. Among many other things, a successful defensive back must be disciplined on every play. It is a unique position on the field in that one false step or one false read may result in a play that can cost your team the game. Our mistakes as defensive backs, more so than any other position on the field, are visible to everyone and, on any given play, can change the outcome of the game.
    One technique is the ever-changing art of press man coverage. I have always been a firm believer in press man. The number one reason is because when you look on the other end of the field and see your offense working routes each day, you never see a corner up in their face disrupting the release. Even the thought of a body being in front of the wide receiver disrupts the mental process of the route before he even runs it. Wide receivers love a free release.As long as their coaches allow me to do so, they will always believe in disruption by using press alignment. Timing is everything to an offense, so any advantage they can gain to disrupt routes is essential to their defensive success, especially in what we call “deny the ball” opportunities which include short yardage, red zone, and goal-line situations.
    For years, I taught corners to play inside-leverage man-coverage in these situations and told them not to allow the inside release. The quick slant is the easiest throw and catch for an offense and that is where our route progression always starts. Despite our teaching and drill work in practice, it seemed we would still give up the inside release which resulted in bad body position on the slant. The best-case scenario, playing the slant with inside leverage, was that the corner did a good job of flattening out the route and was in position to jump inside on the quick throw or come off the back shoulder to break up the late throw by the quarterback. However, that scenario was presented far less often than the next three I will discuss. These can be used in your day-to-day drills work at practice.

Scenario #1 – The corner does a great job of staying square and flattening the inside release, only to have the wide receiver convert his route and push over the top, putting the defensive back in chase mode. This is our biggest fear as a coach (See Diagram 1). 

Scenario #2 – The wide receiver does a great job of setting us up outside, and the corner ever so slightly opens his shoulders to the sideline. The receiver than sticks his toe in the ground and beats the corner inside on the slant. We are now in a position where we have to speed turn to it and once again, we are in chase mode (See Diagram 2).  

Scenario #3 – We do a great job on the inside release of staying square and the wide receiver sticks his inside toe in the ground, breaks outside, and we are in chase mode on the vertical outside release. This can become an easy throw-and-catch because of our leverage and being so conscious of maintaining our inside position (See Diagram 3). 

    Excluding what we call a tight split, where we would move to an off position and outside leverage, we play head up the wide receiver in our press-man technique (this teaching is based on a man-free situation with inside help from a post safety). Now, rather than tell my corners to dictate release by using leverage, I teach them to do what is natural and simply react to the release of the receiver in front of them. In doing this, we are likely to be successful on any release, and we are able to control our body position much more effectively while reacting to the release.
    Once we have aligned head-up on the WR, we want to be arm’s length from him in a good comfortable stance, with his eyes on the receiver’s belly. From there, everything we do is reactive to the receiver’s release. We will determine the leverage that we play according to the WR’s release with our initial goal being to make the wide receiver work around us at the point of attack. There will be no vertical release allowed because we will hold our position and stay square, forcing the WR to declare a release one way or the other.
    As with any other movement in the defensive backfield, we start with our footwork. Pre-snap, through repetition, the corner will know where his “push foot” is and where his “reach foot” is. With our corners, we always use our inside foot as our push foot. That means all of is weight is distributed on the ball of his inside foot ready to push out on movement by the receiver so he can create some separation to give the corner time to react. On movement, we push with the inside foot and reach with the outside foot, taking two 6-inch steps (one with each foot) back into a “hot foot” position where we are ready to react. The pre-snap weight distribution is the key on the push foot to eliminate any false steps on the snap.
Here are some additional drills you can use:
 
Push and Reach – Have the corner get in a good stance head up the WR at arm’s length. Have him distribute his weight on his inside foot and slowly swing his outside foot side to side to ensure all of his weight is off the reach foot. On your signal, have him push out off of the inside foot and reach with the outside foot. All you are working on here is the first step. The goal of this drill is to ensure there are no false steps coming out.

Step to Balance – This is the “push-and-reach” drill with an added second step. Push and reach with the proper feet and a second 6-inch step to it. After the two 6-inch steps, have the corner hold his position with his feet hot. Stress that the feet need to remain active and you are square at this point ready to react to the release of the wide receiver.

Stab – Have the corner head up a WR as if he has already “stepped to balance”, then have the WR step inside and outside over and over, with the corner reacting with a stab.  Make sure he is getting good punch with the stab and his aiming point is in the near armpit of the receiver. Then incorporate the “Push and Reach”, “Step to Balance”, and “Stab” all into the same drill.

Releases – I always work releases by teaching the route progression. We start with quick- game releases and work up to vertical routes. On the inside release, we work slant, curl, dig, post, in that order. On the outside release, we work hitch, comeback, vertical in that order. It is important to progress into routes so they can feel the different levels that the routes take place.

    Most of the teaching is at the point of attack within the first two yards of the line of scrimmage. In my experience, playing inside leverage often puts you in chase position and has you getting a different look at the same route because of WR adjustments. By simply changing our alignment and technique at the point of contact, we are allowing the release that we have studied all week during our preparation, and playing from a consistent position on that release and route throughout the game. In the process, the kids are able to carry out their natural reaction to WR releases, which creates a comfort zone for the corner. A comfortable defensive back plays faster, which is a key component to success. u

Keith Hatcher just completed his first season as secondary coach and recruiting coordinator at Murray State. He previously coached for three seasons at Georgia Southern. Hatcher also coached at both Valdosta State and the University of Alabama-Birmingham. A two-sport athlete at Mars Hill College, Hatcher received his Bachelor’s Degree in 2000.