The Changing Face of Defense in the NFL: Defensive Back

This mini-series of articles is intended to show what those changes look like on the defensive side of the NFL and ask how your leagues and strategy can change to take account and advantage of them.

You can find the first article in the series here and the second here.

This article will refer to a number of different secondary packages. Most of them are self-explanatory but to be clear about how they’ve been defined:

• Base: two corners and two safeties.
• Nickel: three corners and two safeties.
• Dime: four corners and two safeties.
• Big nickel: two corners and three safeties.
• Big dime: three corners and three safeties.
• Dime plus: four corners and three safeties.
• DB Heaven: eight or more defensive backs.
• Light: Fewer than four defensive backs (generally goal-line and short-yardage).
• Skinny nickel: four corners and one safety.
• Huge dime: two corners and four safeties.

General Secondary trends

The first chart shows which secondaries teams have used in the NFL regular season over the last decade.