An all-dime defensive game plan to slow down the pass.

[Ben E Lou]

I've had a great deal of success against passing teams using this. I don't think I've given up a single FOF MP standard 350-yard, 4 TD type game when I've run this defense, and averages are quite low. My WOOF team has used an all-dime defense more than any other team--most games for roughly 2 1/2 seasons--and is averaging less than 6.0 yards per attempt allowed.

The game plan is attached.

Some comments.

STRENGTHS

Very good against the pass
If you gather the personnel for it, it guarantees that your best 11 non-injured guys will be on the field every single play. (If you didn't realize it, FOF *never* substitutes when you're in nickel, dime, or goal line.)
Fairly unimpressive players seem to work just fine in it as nickel and dime backs.WEAKNESSES

Weak against the run
Now that it's public, people might try to create offensive game plans to use against it if they notice you using it a good bit.
Backups will never see the field apart from injuries, so development of youngsters will slow if they're not in the top 11 for dime.NOTE THAT YOU MUST SET YOUR DEFENSE TO 3-4. The dime appears to function differently in the 4-3 than the 3-4. I don't understand why, but this game plan works quite a bit better when the defense is in a base 3-4. *shurg*

DISCLAIMER: As with any FOF game plan that pushes the envelope, I do not recommend making untested tweaks to this. You never know if something is successful because you're in a "sweet spot" of some sort. I haven't done any testing of small or large tweaks to any of the settings in it.


Incidentally, I originally stumbled across this quite by accident. I would have thought it was too imbalanced to work. I just had a bunch of DBs in WOOF whose rust needed to be shaken off in the final week of preseason, so I went all-dime in that game so they'd play every snap. I forgot to change it back. (Before this game plan, I basically never changed offenses or defenses for years and years.) By the time I noticed (around Week 6 or so of the regular season), we were so dominant against the pass that I did some tweaking and testing and stuck with it unless playing against teams who run a lot.

[Celeval]

Open letter to people in the WOOF or IHOF:

pleasepleaseplease run this against me

[Celeval]

:)

[Ben E Lou]

Yeah, uh, I wouldn't try it against you.

[Kodos]

It's pretty surprising something like this doesn't result in the offense becoming familiar with the defense and hosing things. **disclaimer--I don't know if FOF even has a feature where and offense becomes familiar with the defense**

[gstelmack]

It's pretty surprising something like this doesn't result in the offense becoming familiar with the defense and hosing things. **disclaimer--I don't know if FOF even has a feature where and offense becomes familiar with the defense**

The other sad part is that playing the same 11 defenders every play all season (barring injury) doesn't seem to affect their performance.

[Ben E Lou]

Jim covered that in a Q&A. The offense doesn't become as familiar with the defense as vice versa. Plus, this particular defense would appear to be exempt from any familiarity.

Q: Recently, someone posted a response from Solecismic customer support. This response indicated that using some defensive tactics too frequently can result in what is essentially the opposite of the "defense looked very familiar with that play" message, however there's no message. Add to that the fact that many people will be unable to make a "feel" determination of when they're doing something too often because they only play MP, and you get a situation where people are probably doing things quite harmful to their defense's success--things that worked well in FOF2K4 but no longer work for FOF2K7. Given all of that, can you give some general guidelines as to "how much is too much" with regard to blitzing, blitzing multiple players, using the nickel and dime, and playing the same pass coverage, or should we just use recommend for all of these things?

A: Yes, that's true, though not on quite as extensive a scale (maybe half the code, same concept). The offensive coordinator is looking at your pass coverage and defensive expectations (run, pass, aggressive) in various situations. The results are far less dramatic, never more than even the minimum level of what would generate a "familiar" message on offense. In the future, I see this giving more life to the play-by-play, but for now, it doesn't belong there.

However, it is enough to make a difference, and a team that runs the same coverage 100% of the time will be less effective.

I would definitely use the recommend buttons to get a sense of what the computer expects in a game plan. You can use some coverages more than others (the bump-and-runs have a higher tolerance, followed by the basic 2-deep). Most teams will start to run into a little bit of trouble if they use one of the most popular coverages more than half the time, maybe 40% being the most I'd ever run of any the others.

Blitzing and personnel are outside of play-calling recognition. Personnel because it doesn't tell you much on its own that isn't obvious, and blitzing because blitz packages aren't yet implemented in Front Office Football. That will come some day.

[Ben E Lou]

(That last post was in response to Celeval, not Greg.)

[TheMeat]

I've used an all-nickle for almost my entire MP career, and switched to an all-dime 2 yrs ago in FOWL. That's a great league for this, although if I knew 2 of my div mates were using it I'd run a lot. I gave up 5.89 yds per carry against the run last year but went 12~4 and won the title. The trick is your offense MUST generate points.

If you play a 4~3 then for some reason your MLB (IIRC) blitzes like he thinks he's the WLB in a 3~4. If you use the 3~4 then only your 3 DL rush the pass, and the LB's cover. So really in that situation you're playing a 3~2~6 defense. And it works very well against passing teams and even fairly well against running teams providing you can get a lead. In that situation with the O forced to pass and the D expecting the pass in a 3~2~6.... Lights out. If you want to play a true dime then you need to use a 4~3 and slot in a good PassRush guy in the MLB.

Another interesting thing about this is that it can be used to help your cohesion if you know a little about how cohesion is generated.