Coaching Defense: Being Multiple in your coverages with your star/sam LB.

Many teams play a 4-2-5 or a 3-3 defense with their star OLB as primarily a flat or seem curl defender or underneath cover guy in zone. They will also use him primarily as a man to man defender on#2 or #3 often in man vs trips, while bringing the Safety down to cover #2 in the flat . The other thing you will see in 4-2-5 schemes is the sam coming on pressure in cover 1 and cover 0 and the SS coming down to cover #2.

But this article will look at some other ways to play the Sam LB and use him as a deep defender.

Let’s look at some defensive structures from NC State and how they use their Sam as a deep defender in certain concepts which allows them some flexibility on early downs.

Let’s start with the basic Sam responsibilities. Like so man of us they play him as an olb in some of their base coverages.

Traditional quarters

Sam flat defender

Traditional roll 3x1

Sam is curl defender

Now let’s look at some zone in which they play the sam as a deep player. They do this primarily in 2 coverages. The first is 2 to the field and 4 to the boundary. Some call it cover 6 while others call it 24. Either way, you take the Sam and play him as a deep safety in your scheme.