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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Doug Farrar and Greg Cosell

The Xs and Os: How modern NFL defenses affect receiver performance

Receivers in today’s NFL have to deal with more stuff coming at them from a defensive perspective than at any other time in football history. That four-man front coming after your quarterback could actually be an overload front, or everyone could drop out, and all of a sudden, you’re dealing with eight in coverage, flooding all the zones.

And you, Mr. Receiver, could be looking at what you think is Cover-3 pre-snap, but the second safety works back, and now you’re dealing with Quarters coverage. Oh, and this could all be happening in Big Nickel with three safeties. You and your quarterback had best be on the same page with that one!

In this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” Greg (of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup) and Doug (of Touchdown Wire and the USA Today Sports Media Group) get into how the pictures have changed for receivers, and why building the ideal receiver corps (the overarching subject for this week’s video/podcast) must include receivers in every alignment who can read defenses just like quarterbacks do.

You can watch that part of the discussion right here:

You can watch the full version of this week’s “Xs and Os” right here:

And, you can listen to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…on Apple podcasts…

…and on YouTube.

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