Gus Bradley Glossary: What do MOFC and MOFO Mean?

Introducing a new series where I break down specific terms of Gus Bradley's defense. First up, let's talk about what MOFO and MOFC mean on defense.

The Indianapolis Colts have made a new hire at defensive coordinator, as they have agreed to terms with long time coach Gus Bradley. In this new series for the site, I will be defining some important terms for this defense to give you all a better understanding of them when they pop up in future articles.

The first words for the Gus Glossary are MOFC and MOFO. So many fans and analysts have talked about how the Colts were a "cover-two" defense under Matt Eberflus. Now the conversations are already starting with calling Gus Bradley a "cover-three" defense coach.

When it comes to classifying defenses and talking about what scheme coordinators run, there are only two overly simplistic distinctions; MOFC and MOFO. In today's article, I will break down these two terms and talk about how the Colts are changing on the defensive side of the ball.

MOFO (Middle of the Field Open)

The reason why the classification of defenses can be simplified is because so much of the game nowadays is window-dressing. Defenses can disguise so many looks and tendencies pre-snap to throw off opposing offenses. The hardest players to hide, however, are the safeties.

MOFO refers to the middle of the field being open on a certain play. These coverages can include your standard cover-two, cover-four, or cover-zero calls. Defenses can typically try to hide this call by starting a safety near the line of scrimmage or more in a robber call, but they will often bail out to deep halves after the snap.

Here is an example of how the Colts' defense looked with their MOFO calls last year. Notice how the Colts bail into the two-high shell, meaning the defensive call is one of the coverages listed above (typically).

While Matt Eberflus did add a good bit of variety down the stretch this past season, he is traditionally a MOFO play-caller. Calling his scheme just a "cover-two" defense is a limiting term that doesn't really cover all that his scheme entailed.

MOFC (Middle of the Field Closed)

MOFC or middle of the field closed refers to there being a single high safety in the middle of the defense. The basic coverage calls in this classification are cover-one, cover-three, and cover-three match.

The middle of the field is closed in this look because the single-high safety is lurking over anything over the middle. From post routes to deep ins or digs, the single-high safety is in better position to break on these routes than the safeties would be in a MOFO call.

Here is an example of the Las Vegas Raiders being in a MOFC last season:

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Gus Bradley typically likes to sit in a coverage call that features the MOFC. Calling it just a "cover-three" defense is a bit disingenuous where as classifying it as MOFC is a broader (albeit still rather simplified) term to use.

How this Changes the Colts' Scheme

The biggest changes for the Colts this upcoming season will be in what is asked of the safety position. In the past, Khari Willis and Julian Blackmon were interchangeable safeties that would each take half the field in deep zones.

While Eberflus did rotate in some MOFC looks to have Blackmon as the single-high safety, that will become much more commonplace going forward under Bradley. Blackmon will become more of a traditional free safety with Willis seeing more snaps in the box (or as a robber) as a traditional strong safety.

The two will obviously still have to be interchangeable and be able to rotate on certain designs and coverages, but their specific roles will be much more defined in this new defense than they were under Eberflus.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the point of this article is to say that if we are going to overly simplify a defensive pass scheme, we should be using terms like MOFC and MOFO rather than cover-two defense and cover-three defense.

This is obviously just the very tip of the iceberg for most of what we are going to talk about this offseason, but it is important to have in mind for future discussions.

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