Thanks in advance. Armando posted some PFF info about it. He mentioned that Howard was targeted like 13 times (most of any CB week 2).
"The thing is, the Dolphins didn’t play a lot of press-man on Sunday. There was a lot of zoney stuff back there.)" - Armando Salguero
It's not that cut & dry. I'll explain. If the ball is on the hashes to either side, or if the offense is aligned in an unbalanced offensive set, it can alter coverages and make them a combination of 2 out of 3 possible coverages (man, zone, and/or pattern match).
An example is if there are 3 receivers to the fieldside (longest area of the field) and 1 receiver to the boundary (short area of the field) the single DB on the boundary can be in man coverages on the one reciever, while on the fieldside the DB's can be playing zone or pattern match over the trips receivers.
Here's a visual for reference for that example with Man over the single receiver and Pattern Match over the trips receivers. Look at the top visual for the defensive keys:
The single backside CB is in MEG (Man Everywhere he Goes)/Cone (signifies FS help over the top).
Over the trips side the strongside DB also has man coverage here, but the Slot, Money backer (noted by $, similar to a SLB), and Strong Safety (SS) all have different keys and responsibilities depending on the route concepts being used. That is what is referred to as Pattern Match.
This is why sites like PFF can not be relied on for such information, or even the grades they distribute, because these things are not taken into account when they simply imply man or zone coverages; it's not always that simple. Specific coverages must be determined because you also have to ID who is actually responsible for which receiver and who made a mistake in their keys or reads if/when it occurs.
