also: matched quarters · pattern-match quarters
The same four-deep shell as Cover 4, with defenders relating to receivers instead of dropping to a spot. Same shell, different defense.
Quarters in which each deep defender's assignment is decided after the routes have started, by what the receivers in front of him actually do rather than by a landmark. He reads the release and either carries the receiver or passes him off. The result behaves like man against vertical routes and like zone against everything else. It is a coverage rule end to end.
pattern matching, matched coverageCover 4, man coverage, Cover 7Matching is a coverage mechanism and nothing else. It is commonly explained as a way of getting safeties into the run fit, and that is a claim about the two-high STRUCTURE rather than about matching: the safeties can help against the run because of where they align, not because of what they do after the snap. Matching happens once the routes have started.
This asks more of the players than the spot-drop version: the rules are decided live, so a defender a step slow reading a release is wrong rather than merely late. That is the real constraint on running it, more than install time.