Arrowhead Pride
Going into Week 3’s “Sunday Night Football” matchup, the Kansas City Chiefs’ defense wasn’t facing a big challenge from the New York Giants’ offense — which is not well-coached, has few weapons for one of the league’s worst starting quarterbacks and also has a poor offensive line.
But it was going to be interesting to see how defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo planned to stop New York’s star wide receiver Malik Nabers, who has already established himself as one of the NFL’s best receivers.
Nabers can outrun any coverage, giving him a strong case to be considered the league’s best vertical route runner. Because of his speed, defenses have to give him big cushions — which he routinely destroys. He is also a smooth route runner who is dangerous with the ball in his hands.
Still, Kansas City was able to limit Nabers to just two catches for 13 yards (on seven targets) during Sunday’s game.
How did they do it? Let’s find out.
For Spagnuolo, the most important part of his plan was preventing Nabers from getting any free space downfield. This way, none of his defenders had to chase Nabers one-on-one — because even for a player like cornerback Trent McDuffie, that’s hard to do. So the Chiefs did something unusual: no matter what, they kept two safeties back while playing soft zone coverages.
In popular parlance, Kansas City was using two-high safety looks against Nabers. But what does that mean?
It all depended on where Nabers lined up.
On the back side of formations, many quarters-based (or match-based) coverage shells have the cornerback play one-on-one man coverage against a back-side receiver. The coverage flows toward the strong side — the side with more receivers. So the back-side receiver is often a quarterback’s outlet target — since they know it will be man-to-man. Offenses often put their best receiver there to get that matchup.
So on this play, Nabers is isolated on the back side. The Chiefs run a Quarter-Quarter-Half coverage — quarters on the strong side with Cover 2 on the weak side. This allows them to get double coverage on Nabers, taking him away inside-out.
Another thing NFL teams like to do is put their receivers in motion to get an advantageous matchup.
The Giants try that here. Nabers goes into motion, moving from the No. 2 spot to the No. 1 spot, trying to dial up a one-on-one matchup with him. The new No. 2 receiver runs a clear-out Over route, hoping to attract both of Kansas City’s safeties. But Chamarri Conner passes off the first vertical route to the other safety. This allows Conner to trail off and get over Nabers again, effectively getting a double-team on him.
Against a team playing softer zone coverages — like Kansas City was doing on Sunday — teams can attack by putting a wide receiver against a linebacker.
The Giants try that on this rep, but the Chiefs have a plan. With three receivers...
