Landmarks: The Foundation of Zone Coverage

Zone coverage contains one simple fact that is often over looked. You are defending zones of the field. As such, you must have a base knowledge about the depth and width of what you are defending. I call this the geometry of football. A football field has specific landmarks. The playing surface is 53 & 1/3 yards wide and 100 yards long with two scoring areas, the end zones, at either end. Each end zone is 10 yards deep. Hash marks represent a landmark system where the ball is placed and approximately 80% of the game is executed. These hash marks are 20 yards from either sideline. The area in between the hashes is 13 & 1/3 yards wide. Diagram 1. Field Dimiensions Another set of landmarks exists in the identification of the yard line numbers. The top of the numbers are 9 yards from the sideline. The middle of the numbers are 8 yards from the sidelines, and the bottom of the numbers are 7