Dallas Cowboys: Is the Cover 3 Defense dead?
When the Dallas Cowboys fired Mike Nolan at the end of the 2020 NFL season, man analysts and fans of the team felt they would try reverting to a similar defensive scheme from the 2018 season. Several weeks later, their priors were confirmed as Dan Quinn was the name chosen amongst a long list of defensive coordinator interviews.
Naturally, there was pushback over the selection. Dan Quinn had been the head coach for the Atlanta Falcons for a little over four years and not once were his defenses in the top half of the league in defensive DVOA. That’s not necessarily a ringing endorsement for a defensive coordinator candidate even if the last defense he coordinated was the best in the league.
Are the Dallas Cowboys reverting to an outdated defense (Cover 3)?
Personally speaking, I understood the selection. Quinn comes from a predominantly single-high defense that plays a lot of Cover 3 mixed in with Cover 2. Man coverage is largely an afterthought with his defense but his ideology did mesh with the Cowboys wanting four-man fronts and for their cornerbacks to play heavy press coverage.
But as months passed on, the Cowboys hadn’t heard a peep from Quinn about what he wants to see defensively. That left many writers, analysts, fans, including myself, in a state of restricted optimism. We were going back to basics, but were we going to see exactly what Quinn ran unsuccessfully in Atlanta, or were things about to change?
On the final day of the NFL draft weekend, we were finally graced with Quinn’s appearance in front of a microphone in a 30-minute long press conference. There was a lot of “coach speak” with Quinn mentioning he wanted a defense that was willing to play fast and physical, but by far the biggest quote that caught everyone’s ears was that he wanted to switch from a 4-3 base front to a 3-4 base front.
Without fail, there was commotion over this. All of a sudden the Micah Parsons and Jabrill Cox selections and Keanu Neal signing started to make a lot more sense in regards to the volume of linebackers on the roster. But there were still questions with the defensive front as IDL Osa Odighizuwa, IDL Quinton Bohanna, and EDGE Chauncey Gholston were drafted for their ability to play as 1-gap defensive linemen. There also wasn’t much good to say about DTs Trysten Hill and Neville Gallimore when they 2-gapped last season.
Of course, there were other questions to be answered in relation to Dan Quinn’s scheme specifically. How often can you really run Cover 3 in today’s league; it seems teams are hiring people willing to play more Quarters looks? How do you expect to stop the RPO if you originally line up in a single-high alignment while stacking the box? How do you expect linebackers, who struggled to fit the run last season, to fit the run while the tackles are 2-gapping again? (That last question is more about the players but Mike McCarthy has, on more than one occasion, talked about how the scheme fits the players and has been mediocre at fulfilling that promise.)
I was in pursuit of answering the question can Dan Quinn do the same thing that made him a successful defensive coordinator almost a decade ago? After doing some digging, I could not believe what I saw! The results may shock you as well!
Ok not really, that just felt like the right thing to say!