Cover 2 Tampa (Tampa 2) Defense

How Cover 2 Tampa Works

The corners are cloud corners, jamming the outside receiver and then sitting in the flat, and the outside linebackers drop to the curl zones around the hashes, reading your drop. The Mike usually opens toward the passing strength (the three-receiver side) and runs down the middle, carrying any seam or post between the safeties.

Where Cover 2 Tampa Is Weak

• The sideline hole between the cloud corner and the half-field safety, around 15 to 20 yards. Corner routes and sails live there.
• Snag: the snag route holds the cloud corner low, and the corner route runs over that corner's head.
• Sail: three receivers at three depths to one side (short, intermediate and deep) overload a corner and one safety.
• Runs and draws, because the middle of the box empties out once the Mike sprints deep.

How to Recognize It

• Before the snap, MFO (two-high): two safeties deep and wide, on or a little outside the hashes, with corners within about 5 yards and outside leverage.
• Linebackers slide with motion, and nobody travels across with the receiver.
• At the snap the corners jam and sit and the safeties backpedal to their halves. Then watch the Mike: opening toward the passing strength and running down the middle, past normal hook depth, means Cover 2 Tampa.

Cover 2 vs Cover 3

Tampa 2 is the Cover 2 family’s version with the Mike running the deep middle, so the deep field belongs to two safeties in halves plus the Mike in the hole between them. Cover 3 is a single-high zone: the post safety takes the deep middle third, the corners bail to the outside thirds and four defenders play underneath.

Before the snap, Tampa 2 shows two high safeties (MFO) with the corners within about 5 yards; Cover 3 shows one safety in the middle of the field (MFC) with the corners off the ball. The soft spots move with it: against Tampa 2, the sideline hole behind the cloud corner and the area the Mike leaves; against Cover 3, the flats, the curls and the seams the Curl/Flat defenders have to carry.

How a QB Reads It

Attack the sideline hole with a corner or sail route over the cloud corner. Once the Mike runs, the 10 to 12 yard area the Mike left opens behind the outside linebackers for an in route or curl. Against a Mike who gets deep fast, the checkdown or a draw is a fine answer.