Continuing his series of listing the best quarterbacks in various situations, the great Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire was at it again, listing his best quarterbacks against every type of defense.
And just as he did in Farrar’s list of quarterbacks in various throws, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow shows up here as Farrar’s best quarterback against Cover 3:
It should come as no surprise that Burrow showed up frequently in our list of the best quarterbacks against every type of throw, and his presence here should be equally unsurprising. Throwing a single deep safety in zone coverage against Burrow and the Bengals was generally a fool’s errand in 2021 — against Cover-3, he completed 123 of 165 passes for 1,471 yards, 826 air yards, 10 touchdowns, three interceptions, a passer rating of 114.0, and an ANY/A of 8.0. Burrow’s touchdowns and passer rating against Cover-3 led the league.
The Bengals are a heavy 3×1 team, but they also like to befuddle defenses in 2×2 sets — and creating openings against zone defenses out of those sets. They also have receivers — such as Tee Higgins in this case — who can blow up double coverage.
Two-high safety looks are making a big comeback, thanks in large part to Chargers head coach Brandon Staley, but that doesn’t mean single-high safety looks are going to die anytime soon.
As teams may look to run the ball more and catch defenses off-guard, Cover 3 is still a good defense to allow eight in the box to stop the run. Today’s world of defense provides strong safeties that are just as versatile as free safeties in playing the run and the pass, allowing for constant coverage changes and rotations.
As we enter 2022, and this Bengals offense gains another year of experience, it will be very interesting to see how opposing defenses handle Burrow and what types of coverages they throw at him.
