NFL and College Football Defense: Bear Front Zone Pressure Concepts

 Bear Front Pressures and Coverages 

The Bear front is a very effective front vs the run and has been run by numerous coaches over the years. It is a good way to cover guards and help take away guard pulling schemes. It has great merit in the run game.
Teams have been using it and it is very effective in zone coverage as well.

This article will look at playing cover 3 and cover 2 while bringing bear front pressures.

(You can see all the clips with the article at the bottom of the page)

Front

The Bear front is played with 2 3i a nose guard and 2 5i's. When teams get a tight end, you will often see  the dt to that side shift to a 4i. Some teams like it from a defensive perspective playing it that way. Some teams will move with it like the diagram below. All in all, it is a good scheme and ties in nicely to a 4-2-5 as you can play it without subbing and walking a will linebacker down(#22) and kicking the d line the other way. In the exampe below it is to the right. 

Bear is an excellent run defense, especially against teams that run some gap schemes because you can cover the guards and cause some issues in the run game. 

How to convert to Bear

There are 3 ways you can get into bear from your 4-2-5 defense.

You can bring an extra d lineman in the game and sub out a LB, walk the will LB or mike over the nose which teams do or bump the front. All have merit depending on the personnel. I usually like to walk the LB up if I have a decent size mike because moving the front can cause issues at times.

You also have to decide how you want to play your nose guard.

You have several options:

1. Do you play him to the side away from the back.

2. Do you have him play half man behind(offside A gap away from flow)

3. Do you have him play front side A gap and let the lb play offside A

4. Do you allow him to play 2 gap with the LB just playing off him.

5. Do you have him play the tight end (run strength A gap)

You can also sub the front like below and bring an extra d lineman in if you don't like playing your will on the line of scrimmage. Take a safety out and bring a d lineman in. I've done both. 

Coverages

Zone concepts 

How you play your bear cover concepts depend on where you are bringing the pressure from. If you bring it from the field you can get into an easy cover 3 situation with the backside OLB playing a zone. You can also blitz the mike and use both OLB in coverage.

Cover 2 hole Cowboys Version

The Cowboys like to take their best rusher Micah Parsons and put him stacked over the LB.

They are disguising cover 3 pre snap and then go to a cover 2 hole look.They drop both OLB into coverage.

Cover 2  

Below is an example of how you can play cover 2 with the de playing as the hook player in bear.

You can play the coverage by dropping your will , who is on the los and your DE to the hook,You can send the mike. This is just one option. You can also rush the end and drop the mike into the hook and send a 4 man pressure that way as well. 

You can see the defensive end playing the middle hook and walling #3. I think keeping the DE inside rather than playing the curl is a better situation and playing in less space.

Another example of cover 2

The RT OLB will play the hook and the mike plays the weak curl.

You see the OLB dropping into the middle hook and the Mike working towards the curl playing off #1

Here is the film clips with the coverage

Bear Cover 3 

The Seahawks bring the Mike from a stacked look. They use their nickel personnel with 33 Adams stacked.

A nice design as they get the free rusher with the game and loop stunt by Adams.

Here’s the film that goes with the diagram.

More Cover 3 Fire Zone pressures

Wisconsin brings the mike and plays cover 3 with the OLB dropping into pass coverage.

Bear Strike Cover 3 , They send the sam to the field in the bear look and drop the olb to the boundary. They play cover 3 and slant the whole defensive front. It’s another sound way to incorporate zone coverage into your bear package.

Utah vs Washington State

Bringing 2 to the field in bear is tough to block. If you bring 2 then you should drop 2 into coverage opposite the pressure.

Another field overload pressure. The OLB and the weak DE drop into coverage. It’s a nice 5 man pressure design.

Utah vs BYU

Similar concept 3 under 3 deep with a defensive lineman playing the hook. They will often have the de drop to the hook as opposed to the flat like several 3 under 3 deep teams when they blitz off the edge.

Another pressure from the bear front. They bring the cb to the bottom of the screen and the mike to the boundary vs the closed set. They get a 2x1 on the tackle as the tackle blocks the LB. In the rpo game that leaves the cb unblocked, qb does a nice job getting the throw off. 

You can  see here as the guard takes the blitzing inside linebacker the cb has a nice free run at the qb. Qb does a great job reading it and is well. coached to get the ball out. The safety does a nice job tackling the wr at 5 yards. 

Here is my video of Utah and some of the coverages that they utilize.

This is the end of the article. I have other bear posts with some man coverage concepts that you may enjoy!