Palms/Quarters/Quarters Press - where should DBs look
DC from Europe here - kinda high school level - some kids with a bit of experience, some who have never seen football in their life.
My playbook is based on palms coverage, played a bit like quarters - so from 7yds off, but CB traps short out routes under 5 yds (apart from RB in the flat, RB is always LB responsibility). We've been pretty successful on defense so far, but I want to have even more solid, disciplined defense. The only thing that worries me with this system (but didn't have this issue yet) - #2 short out, CB traps it but #1 on go route outsprints my safety.
The other thing I struggle with a bit - what DBs keys should be. What I try to teach them - key the QB for first 3 read steps - you should know by then if it's some short route, deep route or run, solely by seeing their drop and if there was a hand-off. Then eyes should go on #2 WR - if at this point he's running out it means corner should trap it. Otherwise both CB and Safety play #1 and #2 MEG respectively.
I have just a few kids who play it very well, others seems to struggle with this read. I wonder - shall I tell them to just read #2 for read steps, but then I may lose run help, or keep as is and it's all matter of reps? Even though we're successful so far, I'm afraid of teams that may actually start flooding me and completing this out routes/go routes if DBs mess up.
As a side note, what I plan to add in upcoming weeks - Narduzzi style press quarters which seems to be natural extension of what we have now, and can be a bit of help if we're getting beat by other offenses.