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I had a friend in high school who played cornerback on the football team. When he told me what position he played, what I thought I heard was "quarterback" and expressed to him my awe and admiration. He rolled his eyes, sighed, and corrected me as he had probably done for many before me.

I think even the most novice of football fans understands the difference between a running play and a passing play. The offense is usually what most fans pay attention to during a game. But do you ever wonder what the announcer means when he says things like "the defense is in a cover-2" or "they're showing blitz." Until I learned these things, I never knew how much of the game I was really missing. Now that I understand this a little better, when the ball is snapped, I have a deeper appreciation of what happens on the defensive side of the game.

Basically there are three groups of defensive players: defensive backs, linemen, and linebackers. Depending on what play is being called, their roles and responsibilities change. In order to understand the plays that can be called, a brief description of their respective roles is needed.

Defensive backs:
These are the cornerbacks and safeties. Normally there are two cornerbacks on the field whose
responsibilities are to cover the wide receivers. There are also usually two safeties, the strong safety and free safety. They, as their names may imply, are more for general pass coverage and as insurance against a wide receiver getting open deep.

Linemen:
These are those big guys on the line, tackles and ends. Normally there are three or four of them. Their primary responsibility is to break down the protection that is around the quarterback and running backs so that either they or the linebackers can get to the quarterback or running backs for a tackle.

Linebackers:
These are the three or four players who play slightly behind the defensive line. Their role is the most varied of the defensive players. Their primary role is to defend against running plays, but they may also be asked to drop into pass coverage or blitz the quarterback.

Now that we have a basic understanding of the players' roles, we should look at the specific types of plays they will be asked to carry out. Though there are a wide variety of plays that can be called, I would argue that the three main categories would be man-to-man, zone, and blitz type plays.

Man-to-man:
In man-to-man defense, each defensive backs and linebackers have a specific players they are responsible to cover or

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