Football is a mental sport. I covered how football is a mental sport in my previous post here. Understanding that football is a mental sport, the defensive coordinator and defensive players know (or should know) that being successful on defense comes down to the ability of the opposing quarterback to make good decisions. Covering areas of the field allows the defensive players to keep their eyes on the quarterback and shift toward the area of their zone that the quarterback is looking at.

A benefit of zone defense is that the defensive players do not need to trail the offensive players step for step. However, that can also lead to a con of zone defense, that sometimes an offensive player can get open by finding a “hole” in the zone defense.