Covington's career began in 1981 as a free agent signing by the Montreal Alouettes.

However a pre-season trade that year sent him to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, where he played his entire career.

He won the Schenley Award for Most Outstanding Defensive Player once and also led the Tiger-Cats to a Grey Cup victory in 1986.

In 1995 Covington was inducted along with former teammate Chet Grimsley into the Johnson C. Smith University Sports Hall of Fame.

(Grimsley's 2011 book The White Golden Bull: How Faith in God Transcended Racial Barriers includes a chapter on the relationship between the author, a white student at the historically black university, and Covington.