If Domonique Foxworth could wave a magic wand to help bridge the gap of what the media doesn’t understand about football, it would be related to coverage.
That shouldn’t be surprising coming from a former defensive back who spent seven seasons in the NFL mastering just that, but it seems to be a universal feeling among players turned analysts. There is seemingly a fundamental misunderstanding of what media members see in terms of position-specific coverage.
Foxworth shared as much during a recent appearance on Kevin Clark’s (and Omaha Productions’) This Is Football podcast.
“Even the guys doing the games, they’ve gotten better at it, but they mess up the coverages and attribute errors to the man who’s closest to the situation,” Foxworth says. “Which is particularly frustrating for a cornerback. Our jobs are hard enough, don’t start blaming us for other sh*t, please.”
Clark asked Foxworth if he had any specific examples without calling anyone out directly.
“It’s a misunderstanding of Cover 2, and who’s responsible for what in Cover 2 if you hit one of those hole shots,” he said. “And an appreciation for the nuances of the coverage. There’s situations where you’re supposed to get a reroute as a Cover 2 corner, and sometimes you let the players get on the safety too quickly, so, it’s not entirely the safety’s fault. I think it’s just how everything has to work together; it’s not always clear.
“I’m more sensitive for the defensive backfield, but it’s probably true for everything and everybody, where it’s like, ‘Alright, this guy threw an interception; he really sucks.’ Maybe there’s something else attributing that fact. But yeah, that’s the thing that drives me crazy because the job is so hard for the guys in the backend; you don’t got to blame us for that extra stuff.”
“There’s a window there to be filled in,” Foxworth added. “I did on my show a couple of weeks ago, after Week 1, we did a little dots video on Marvin Harrison Jr. and explained what happened Week 1. And then he came out, and I was like, ‘Yeah, he’s good, guys,’ and he came out the next week and 100 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter, so I looked really smart; that’s all I care about.”
What we should care about, though, is a problem that Foxworth highlighted — oversimplifying complex plays and assigning blame without understanding the full picture. You shouldn’t have to take a Football 101 class to be a credentialed journalist, but as the sport becomes sophisticated, perhaps media and analysts alike should strive to delve deeper into positional responsibilities so they can explain these intricacies to fans.
Former players like Foxworth can play a crucial role in bridging this gap and create less stuff in the space that “drives me” or others like him, “crazy.”
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.