SAN FRANCISCO — Sometimes somebody smart writes something that makes you take note, and that happened on Tuesday of Super Bowl week.
Warren Sharp, a football analytics guy whom I respect and listen to, penned an interesting story about Drake Maye's struggles against Cover 6 coverage.
Cover 6 is also referred to as quarter-quarter-half coverage. It's a combination coverage. Cover 4, or quarters (deep defenders divide the field by 25%) is played to the field (wide side) or the strength of the offense (tight end side, or where more weapons are lined up). Cover 2 is played to the boundary (short side) or the weak side. The coverage often looks like something else before the snap, and that causes confusion for most quarterbacks, especially young ones (Matthew Stafford did mostly well against it in the NFC Championship, but of course he saw them three times).
https://weeklyspiral.com/2021/08/16/cover-6/
Among the big takeaways from Sharp:
• The Bills played Cover 6 11.8% against the Patriots in New England's Week 5 victory. In the Bills' Week 15 victory, they played it 50%. "Maye averaged -0.34 EPA/attempt, had a 23% success rate, threw for 4.3 Y/A, and had a 64% completion rate. The Bills also were in Cover 6 when Maye threw an interception."
• The Ravens, Chargers, Texans and Broncos all jacked up their Cover 6 rates against the Patriots, most doubled them.
• Maye has been one of the worst QBs in the league this season against Cover 6: #31 in EPA, #33 in success rate, and #32 in Y/A.
• The Seahawks played Cover 6 at the third-highest rate in the league.
All very interesting, for sure. But it leads to obvious questions, like, how real is this, will it be a factor, and how to the Patriots counter it?
To start, this appears to be real. I don't doubt Sharp's numbers, and you can definitely see an uptick in the numbers, even from the service I use, toward the end of the season. These are all the Cover 6 numbers for Maye:
Some of you may be saying, "The Bills game? The Patriots scored 31 points!" Yes, but if you remember, the Patriots scored just 7 points in the second half as the Bills came back to win, scored four rushing TDs (two big ones by TreVeyon Henderson, two by Maye), Maye's rating was 62.8 (lowest of the regular season by far). Also, I'll add that was my second-lowest graded game of the season, and the heavy Cover 6 games, minus the Ravens, were four of my eight lowest-graded Maye games.
And the Seahawks do play it more than most, with varying degrees of success.
I also checked out some of the plays tagged as Cover 6 for the Seahawks against the Rams, and it checks out. But I will add that the Seahawks have their own flavor, where the lone cornerback actually plays press man. You'll see it in the following pictures at the top of the screen, with cornerback 29 Josh Jobe lined up with Davante Adams (it's Jobe because 27 Riq Woolen is the other boundary, and 21 Devon Witherspoon is matching against Puka Nacua in the slot, or at least attempting to; Patriots could get this Witherspoon on Diggs).
Stafford gets sacked on this play, a third down, for a 9-yard loss. The first thing I want to say about this play by the Rams — and this will be one of the Patriots' answers — is I have no idea why Matthew Stafford turns down the go route to Adams. It's there, actually a few times in the game (he does throw it in the second half). Maye is not turning down that throw to Kayshon Boutte, he loves it. Just need to hold the other safety, which Maye has done and I'm sure Josh McDaniels will be schooling him on that this week.
Other popular answers to Cover 6:
• Flood the zone on three levels (flat, hole shot, go from the slot) to the quarters side. Patriots do this a lot.
• Get the back out quickly to the flat on the Cover 2 side.
• Threaten the Cover 2 safety with a route in the middle of the field, leaving the corner back exposed. Patriots do this with Mack Hollins and DeMario Douglas.
• Run the ball.
• Clear out vertical route paired with a deep in cut to the Cover 2 side. Patriots ran this a few times against the Broncos.
The bottom line is, I don't really fear this for the Patriots. McDaniels' scheme has a lot of built-in options for the quarterback, and Maye has the ability to move guys from one side of the formation to the other. As long as the Patriots protect well, and give Maye the extra second he needs to sort out the coverage, he can get to his options.
This isn't a flaw for Maye at this time. He's just young and hasn't seen everything multiple times. Plus, with McDaniels and more time to prepare for this coverage from the Seahawks, I have a pretty high level of confidence they'll navigate it better on Sunday.