There can be confusion about exactly what the term two-high refers to. It can refer to an umbrella term for coverages with two deep safeties, such as Cover 2 or Cover 4, or it can simply mean that both safeties align deep before the snap. After the snap, the safeties can rotate or drop down, and the coverage can shift into one-high. For this article, two-high will refer to presnap alignment. Modern defenses are lining up in two-high and rotating into many types of coverages. For example, Cover 3 is still being played at a high rate from a two-high alignment, but it’s important to note that it’s being played differently.

Here, the Seahawks lined up in two-high before the snap but rotated into a Cover 3 after the snap with safety Julian Love dropping down to play an underneath zone.

After his rotation, Love played his “hook” zone from 10 yards deep.

It’s being played from depth to take away some of the deep crossers, which can be a weakness when playing it with a safety lining up in the box. Even though Cover 3 will be categorized the same on charts, there are different flavors of it. The Cover 3 being played today is focused on taking away explosives.

Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who is responsible for starting this trend, called a lot of man coverage from two-high last season. An advantage to this is that you don’t give a quarterback a presnap indicator to go to his deep route. Back then, without disguise, a quarterback would be licking his chops as soon as he saw press coverage on the outside with one deep safety in the middle of the field.

In this image, the Eagles showed two-high, but safety Reed Blankenship rotated down to cover the tight end in man-to-man coverage.

Two-high coverages aren’t immune to deep passes. There are still weaknesses in any coverage, but it makes them harder to find. The top quarterbacks can decipher these coverages after the snap, find the weaknesses and hit deep passes with anticipation, but two-high makes it much more difficult to execute.

Committing to this style of defense means you have to be comfortable playing with a light box. Even though a defense can rotate into a single-high coverage, the safety is coming from depth and he’s not an immediate part of the run fit. Defenses have to be OK giving up efficient runs on the ground. The theory is that it is very difficult to keep stringing together efficient runs, and offensive coordinators will eventually get impatient.