Defensive Gameplanning

[Shoveler]

My teams always seem to be terrible at defense, and it feels like it's holding me back in MP leagues. I'll admit trying to setup the game plans for defense has been a bit daunting to me, and I've been trying to break it apart here recently to get a better handle on it.

I am really struggling with how you build a gameplan to a specific opponent, or a gameplan in general, when there are three levels of RNG you have to deal with. In short, it doesn't feel like there are enough customizable options to really dig in and set up the defense without having to cross your fingers and hope the right set of circumstances are selected on each play.

Take this hypothetical example. Say my gameplan analyzer shows that on 2nd and 1 my opponent runs the ball 50% of the time, but throws deep 50% of the time. If I am approaching this correctly, here is what I wanted to do but yet this seems like a terrible idea:

1. Set the defensive pass coverage for 46-60% pass, to reflect 50% run coverage and 50% deep pass coverage.

2. In the basic defensive gameplan screen, set aggressive run + run to 50%, and aggressive pass to 50%.

3. In the defensive personnel choices screen, set aggressive pass to 100% dime defense. (This feels like a terrible idea, as now I am always in dime for aggressive pass.. but just roll with it for this example).

So with this setup, I have a 50% shot of calling the correct defensive approach, and then another 50% shot at calling the correct play, which means I am already at 50% of 50% (25%) at getting the right defense in place. So I chose 100% aggressive pass coverage so that I could guarantee I'm in the dime for a deep pass, keeping me at 25% (100% * 25%). Those are some shitty odds, and a lot of work for one situation.

It feels like the way the defensive gameplan is setup, you have a % chance of calling the right defensive approach (run vs. pass), another % chance at calling the right defensive play, and then a final % chance of being in the formation you would like (dime, nickle, etc..).

No wonder offense is so much more potent then defense in this version of the game (although I have not played any previous ones, just going off of other comments). Maybe the best defense in FOF7 is having a superior offense to keep your garbage defensive gameplan off the field.

I've been playing around with this in a single player game, and I am seeing decent results in the run stopping category, but I cannot figure out how to slow down the passing game at all. If there is any help out there for an idiot like me, please point me in the right direction.

I'll keep plugging away with my SP game. I've experimented with blitzing, double coverage, and a variety of play calling setups, but I consistently give up 10+ yards per completion against the pass. My SP team has much better individual players than any of my MP teams, which isn't helping my confidence.

[Shoveler]

Alright, as a caveat to my previous example. I believe the correct answer would be to eliminate the big pass play 100% of the time therefore increasing your odds to match up against the offense correctly 50% of the time.

But, I dont want that to be the takeaway from my question.

Is my understanding of how the defense works correct? In my SP game I have removed all instances of 4-deep coverage as I test the other coverages, yet each season I see a handful of those plays showing up on defense. The game obviously adjusts the defense in certain situations, probably at the end of a game by going into the prevent defense.

How are other folks gameplanning on a game-by-game basis, or for a full season at one time?

Or is the best course of action to just rex the defense and spend all your time on the offense? I hate this option as it feels like I am missing out on part of the game I should be trying to squeeze more out of at the moment.

I am using gameplan analyzer, and so far all I am getting from it is a giant, "You suck at defense" message each season. I dont believe in my SP test that I am overusing any one particular defense, there are always at least 3 defenses available for RNG to select in each of my pass coverage screens. I do weight run defenses extremely heavily in the less frequent pass coverage screens.

In my latest test I used the following for the pass coverage screens:

		Pass + Aggressive Pass (Total Percentage)
FORMATION	USAGE	0-9	10-29	30-45	46-60	61-85	86-100
1-Deep, Loose Man	RUN	45	35	28	20	7	0
1-Deep, Bump and Run	RUN	45	35	27	20	8	0
2-Deep, Loose Man	NEUTRAL		5	5	16	16	16
Strong-Side Man, Weak Side Zone	NEUTRAL – BAD AGAINST RECEIVING TES
Weak-Side Man, Strong Side Zone	NEUTRAL – GOOD AGAINST RECEIVING TES	10	25	20	16	16	16
2-Deep, Bump and Run	SHORT PASS
3-Deep Zone	PASS			20	28	53	68
4-Deep Zone	DEEP PASS
		100	100	100	100	100	100
	CHANCE OF RUN %	90	70	55	40	15	0

[Shoveler]

And I get these results from gameplan analyzer:

*Is there a way to see YAC for the defense? That might help to know if I am letting receivers get to much yardage after the catch by playing to deeply on defense?

Defense By Coverage
	Plays	Pct	Yds	YPP	Succ	Pct	RushP	Yds	YPR	Succ	Pct	Stuf	Pct	DrpB	Pass	Cmp	Pct	Int	Pct	Yds	YPA	YPC	Succ	Pct	Sack	Pct
OneDeepLooseMan	90	8.2%	524	5.82	41	45.6%	40	145	3.63	19	47.5%	9	22.5%	50	41	26	63.4%	2	4.9%	379	9.24	14.58	22	44.0%	4	8.0%
OneDeepBumpAndRun	111	10.1%	502	4.52	40	36.0%	60	172	2.87	17	28.3%	20	33.3%	51	42	32	76.2%	2	4.8%	330	7.86	10.31	23	45.1%	5	9.8%
TwoDeepLooseMan	264	23.9%	1,475	5.59	107	40.5%	94	430	4.57	40	42.6%	16	17.0%	170	153	95	62.1%	4	2.6%	1,045	6.83	11.00	67	39.4%	6	3.5%
TwoDeepBumpAndRun	45	4.1%	260	5.78	21	46.7%	19	71	3.74	8	42.1%	4	21.1%	26	25	18	72.0%	0	0.0%	189	7.56	10.50	13	50.0%	0	0.0%
ThreeDeepZone	400	36.2%	2,677	6.69	189	47.3%	106	518	4.89	53	50.0%	30	28.3%	294	271	179	66.1%	6	2.2%	2,159	7.97	12.06	136	46.3%	10	3.4%
FourDeepZone	6	0.5%	131	21.83	4	66.7%	1	5	5.00	0	0.0%	0	0.0%	5	5	4	80.0%	0	0.0%	126	25.20	31.50	4	80.0%	0	0.0%
StrongSideMan	0	0.0%	0	0.00	0	0.0%	0	0	0.00	0	0.0%	0	0.0%	0	0	0	0.0%	0	0.0%	0	0.00	0.00	0	0.0%	0	0.0%
WeakSideMan	188	17.0%	1,037	5.52	72	38.3%	79	218	2.76	25	31.6%	24	30.4%	109	98	70	71.4%	0	0.0%	819	8.36	11.70	47	43.1%	4	3.7%

[garion333]

Originally Posted by Shoveler

In short, it doesn't feel like there are enough customizable options to really dig in and set up the defense without having to cross your fingers and hope the right set of circumstances are selected on each play.

Your instincts are correct here, it's always a bit of a crap shoot.

I disagree with your take on the customization aspect for the most part. I was miffed at the defense aspect for a long time because it all seemed horribly designed, but that's because I was looking for "play Cover 2 here", "play 46 here" buttons or something. I think the defensive screens would make more sense if and when we can have multiple screens open at once. Until then it takes a much longer time to try and get all the screens to work in conjunction.

[garion333]

Originally Posted by Shoveler

And I get these results from gameplan analyzer:

*Is there a way to see YAC for the defense? That might help to know if I am letting receivers get to much yardage after the catch by playing to deeply on defense?

Unless your intent is to play a Zone-first defense I'd say you have too much ThreeZone and not enough BnR. And probably too much OneDeep.

This is closer to what works (imho):

[Shoveler]

My intent was to test a few seasons where I was switching between 2-deep man and 2-deep bnr. But leaving the 3-deep zone. I was probably giving to much weight to the help file and what each defense was listed as good against.

2-deep man is an average defense against both run and pass
2-deep brn is good against the short pass
3-deep zone is good against the pass, not against the run

I did give consideration to my players bar in each area before setting up the test.

But ultimately, I find the results of each season to be inconclusive in the gameplan analyzer. It's hard to nail down which defense to use more of when they all seem to perform poorly.

I'll have to try and run your play mix, but that may be difficult unless I just take a broad stroke through all the pass coverage screens, which I would rather not do. My thinking is that 1-deep coverages are still better in situations where you expect a heavy amount of rushing attempts. But perhaps I can tone that down in the middle range.

Thank you Garion

[Nemesis]

Ben did do a little FOF7 Mining.
FOF7 Data Mining (Latest Version Mined=7.1a) - Front Office Football Central


The following is what he did for FOF2k7 6.4, and is what I referenced in CyFL Chat. I would warn you not to read too much into the data itself, since the game is different, but it's something to toy with in your own testing.
Ben's FOF2k7 6.4 GP Analyzer Datamine