Chad Wilson
March 18, 2025
Have you ever been in this position before? You went to a camp, and you were all geared up to do one-on-ones because you wanted to crush the receivers with your press man skills, only to have the coach tell you that you aren’t allowed to play press. It felt like he told you to do the camp without your cleats on.
If you find yourself in this position and weren’t able to perform because you’re not good at off man, you are likely making the three mistakes I’m going to outline in this article.
Wrong Alignment
The biggest mistake I see defensive backs make when playing off man is that they are not aligned correctly. There’s a saying that goes, most battles are won or lost before they begin. If you don’t align right in off man, prepare to lose.
First of all, you must be aligned at the proper depth — this means how far off the receiver you have chosen to set up. If you’re aligned at 5 yards, you are too close and are in what is known as No Man’s Land. This is where you’re too far to play press and too close to play off. You’ll be in trouble the moment the receiver comes off the line of scrimmage — he’ll get you turned fast, and you’ll eventually end up spun around. You can also align too far off, allowing the receiver to run an assortment of short routes that make it easy for him to connect with the quarterback.
Your typical alignment should be 7 yards off. This allows you to comfortably keep a cushion over the wide receiver as he starts his route. It also allows you to maintain a backpedal for a reasonable amount of time before you either have to break or flip your hips to run deep. This alignment has been tried and true over many years. Feel free to test it, but it will most likely be at your peril.
The next alignment issue is leverage. A lot of DBs line up directly in front of the wide receiver, allowing the receiver to run right at them and make a break in either direction to gain separation. Quite frankly, you need to take something away.
When you’re in a camp doing one-on-ones, there is no help. My recommendation is to align inside by at least one yard. If the receiver has a wide split, you may want to experiment with aligning 2 yards inside. If that receiver wants to run an inside route, he’s going to have to work for it. If he decides to run an outside route, you have the ability to put yourself between him and the quarterback.
If you’re playing Cover 1 in a game situation, your coach may ask you to align outside since there may be help inside against the routes. In that case, you would align 7 yards off and one yard outside.
Poor Eye Focus
When it comes to this, off man coverage is just like press coverage — if your eyes aren’t right, you’ll be lost.
Some guys get a little lazy when they’re playing off man. They don’t feel as much urgency because they aren’t as close to the wide receiver. This leads to them placing their eyes wherever. Having that amount of space between you and the receiver can make it harder to focus on his hips, causing some defensive backs to look at the face and shoulders of the receiver. This is a recipe for disaster.
Instead, narrow your focus on the receiver’s hips. Do what you have to do with your vision to cut his torso off. When I played in games, I would pull my facemask down to block my view of the top of the receiver. It was a reminder to me to keep my eyes down during any off man rep. If you struggle to keep your eyes focused when you have distance off a receiver, consider doing something similar. The shoulders and head move faster than the hips — you don’t want to get fooled by false moves from the receiver.
Bad Break Mechanics
The final big problem in off man coverage for a lot of defensive backs is getting in and out of their breaks. Not enough work is done on this by many DBs — most training nowadays focuses heavily on playing press.
The truth is that in most defenses, you’re going to spend more time playing off the receiver than right up in front of him. Sometimes you will have to play off man, and a lot of times you will be off in a zone coverage.
With this in mind, it is in your best interest to work on getting out of your breaks. This means learning how to keep your weight over your toes, be efficient in your plant, and become exceptional at driving out of your breaks. None of these things are going to happen if you don’t put in the time practicing them.
Sometimes you can effectively anticipate a route by a receiver and still fail to make a play because your break mechanics were bad. Mechanics also include being able to effectively turn and run when the receiver goes deep. Inefficiency in that skill will get you beat a lot of times. I highly recommend that you put in the time with your drill work to improve in these areas.
Conclusion
If you want to shine at the next camp or make a ton of plays this season when you have to play off man coverage, I highly suggest that you fix these three errors. Whether it is aligning wrong, having poor eye focus, executing bad break mechanics, or all three, winning your off man coverage reps will be difficult.
Put the time in this offseason training in these areas and watch your performance rise. I have a ton of drills and education on playing off man in the All Eyes DB Camp Members Area. If you are not yet a member, I highly recommend that you join. Click here for more information.
Chad Wilson is the owner of All Eyes DB Camp and author of "101 DB Tips". He played college football at the University of Miami and briefly in the NFL for the Seattle Seahawks. Over his 15 year high school football coaching career, he tutored over a dozen Division I defensive backs and as a trainer has worked with NFL All Pros, first round draft picks, college football All Americans and Top 10 ranked high school football prospects.
