True. The key to Stevens is Hampton and Harris. They have to be better in coverage to allow Stevens to spin and be available for RBs.

The pattern matching zone is supposed to alleviate some of that. Even your best cover S struggle with many of these slot WRs. You have guys like Jefferson and now Marshall who normally would be wide in the slot now. TE's like Gilbert and Pitts who S's can't quite match.

In short, you will often, very often, struggle with personnel matchups against todays offenses IF you are going to stop the run. We, thankfully, make a living nowadays doing the same on the offensive side of the ball.

One of the keys to today's pattern matching zone is that is "swaps" to man-man if a receiver goes vertical and leaves the zones. If you have good corners, which we do with 1 inexperienced (Ricks), and then that should alleviate some pressure on the S on the deep routes.

You are man-man only in your zone, hand off if receiver crosses into another zone, and if receiver goes out back of zone (vertical) you stay with him. Makes you susceptible to clear outs short but that's what S's are for, not double coverage deep. Obviously, it is somewhat dependent on pressure to limit the risk deep.

So Stevens having to cover WRs, deep, isn't supposed to happen this much. I'd say the S's are supposed to be covering flats and seams more than zones, but I'm guessing on that.

One of the biggest problems is we have pretty regular breakdowns on those vertical routes where no one sticks with it. TEs/RBs running loose is the other problem. Add to that the LBs defending the run, including the edge.

Here's the conundrum- those 3 are in conflict. If failing at 1 the other 2 should be better covered. If CBs aren't going with the vertical routes, why are RBs coming on crossing routes all the way across the field and getting to the sideline. If LBs are sticking with their man in their zone too long, why are S's not free to cover the opposite side of the field for the RB/TE slipping out. On and on.

But the idea is that S's aren't, this often, responsible for covering WRs that deep in the field. So Stevens lack of cover ability is supposed to be hidden somewhat by the scheme where last 2 years it was hidden by personnel (Delpit). But S's on many of these TEs and slot WRs is indeed a losing game whether it is Stevens or not.