Reading the Defense: Week 3

Cover-3 Lives On.

Throughout much of the previous decade (2011-2020), the Seattle Seahawks were tone setters both on the field every week and off the field in front offices each spring. Pete Carroll's defense became known as the "Legion of Boom" for playing fast and hitting hard. A pendulum eternally swings between simple, attacking defenses and complex, read-and-react defenses. Across the NFL, Carroll had pulled this pendulum in favor of his 50-front, Cover-3 scheme. Carroll's assistants spread across the league, taking their interpretations of the Legion of Boom with them.

By the end of the 2024 season, all of these coaches were either dismissed, like Gus Bradley, modernizing their approaches, like Dan Quinn, or eschewing the scheme's simplicity, like Jeff Ulbrich. Carroll himself lost his job in Seattle after the 2023 season, a decade after his Super Bowl victory.

The defensive scheme was a gold mine for IDP fantasy football. It used 4-3 spacing and unleashed a LEO (left end outside), who relentlessly pursued quarterbacks. It spilled tackles to the middle linebacker in run defense and sat back in soft zones that allowed short completions underneath. Defenders piled up tackles, laying the boom on shallow crossers.

Current Commander Bobby Wagner was Carroll's middle linebacker for most of his career. Wagner entered the league in 2012 in the same draft as Buccaneers linebacker Lavonte David and Saints linebacker Demario Davis. Wagner has 200 more combined tackles in his career than David and 400 more than Davis.

Pro Football Focus collects tackle data by coverage type. Analyst and author Jon Macri reports these each year. Zone defense pays off for IDP gamers.

#FFIDP - Most efficient coverage schemes for LB tackling in 2024:

Cover-2: 15.8%
Cover-6: 15.7%
Cover-4: 14.9%
Cover-3: 14.5%

AVERAGE LB TKL EFFICIENCY: 13.1%

Cover-1: 10.4%
Cover-0: 7.9%
2-MAN: 7.5%

Reminder: Zone-heavy defenses are a cheat code for IDP while man-heavy ones… https://t.co/FXZdUm3Jdd

— Jon Macri (@PFF_Macri) June 9, 2025

Pete Carroll is back in the league in 2025, coaching the Raiders. He retained incumbent defensive coordinator Patrick Graham. The defensive scheme, however, appears to be a collaboration between the two. The Raiders lead the NFL in usage rate of Cover-3 through two weeks.

Several sources collect and report coverages by type in robust data sets. These data can differ from source to source. Teams disguise coverages, making identification difficult on quick-hitting or broken plays.

Team coverage rates through Week 2

Via @FantasyPtsData pic.twitter.com/QopN7DjNmT

— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) September 16, 2025

Precise numbers are less important for fantasy football analysis than relative usage and general trends. As Macri reports, the average rate of making a tackle in a Cover-3 zone is much higher than in man coverage (Cover-0, Cover-1, or 2-Man). The following table can be compared to that above to identify changes in the use of coverage by type for each team.

Defensive coverage rates through Week 17 pic.twitter.com/slSBeNAKDZ

— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) December 31, 2024

Raiders middle linebacker Devin White has made 14 solo tackles so far, the third-highest total in the league. White bounced around the league last year, making him a gamble in summer fantasy drafts. The bet looks safe and sound through two weeks.

Anticipating Scheme-Related Variance