albion's attempt at the 4-3 cover 2 BnR

[albionmoonlight]

My goal here is to try to find a workable defense that is also afforable enough to put on the field. From what I have seen, FOF2K4 is dynamic enough so that no one defense can do everything, but this one has worked pretty well for me as a base defense. Basically, from what I have seen, it is pretty good (though not great) against the run. Also, opponents have a very high completion percentage against it, but I led the league in YPA against. And DOMINATED the league in YPC against. In effect, you seem to give up the short pass, but choke off the long ball. The more I use this, the more I like it.

PREMISE:

A 4-3 cover-2 BnR defense that almost never blitzes. The idea is that the game help file describes this as a defense with very little weakness. In addition, by focusing on one coverage and not having linebackers who blitz, you cut down on ratings at which your players need to be good--making them cheaper to obtain and keep. Essential traits are just that. Irrelevant traits are just that. Other traits are good to have, but not as important as the essential traits. (And it's not like I know what "play diagnosis" means in FOF anyway).

PERSONNEL:

Defensive Line:

This is where you will have to break the bank. You want, to the extent possible, 4 studs up front. They need to be stout against the run and, more importantly, as the only source of your pass rush, they need to be amazing pass rushers. Don't skimp on quality here--especially on the pass rush.

Linebackers:

Essential Traits: Run Defense; BnR Defense.

Irrelevant Traits: Pass Rush Technique; M2M Defense; Zone Defense; Pass Rush Strength.

Other Traits: Everthing else.

Cornerbacks (and Nickle and Dime Backs):

Essential Traits: Run Defense; BnR Defense.

Irrelevant Traits: M2M Defense; Zone Defense.

Other Traits: Everything Else.

Safties:

Essential Traits: Run Defense; Zone Defense.

Irrelevant Traits: M2M Defense; BnR Defense.

Other Traits: Everything Else.

SCHEMES:

Basic Defensive Play Selection Chart: Let the AI Set/Set based on your opponent.

Game Plan Misc. Setting: 4-3 Defense. Blitz percentages don't really matter because you almost never blitz.

Pass Coverage:

Extreme Run Situation: 60% 1 Deep BnR; 40% 2 Deep BnR.

Running Situations: 25% 1 Deep BnR; 75% 2 Deep BnR

Slight Running Situations: 100% 2 Deep BnR

Slight Passing Situations: 100% 2 Deep BnR

Passing Situations: 100% 2 Deep BnR

Extreme Passing Situations: 50% 2 Deep BnR; 40% 3 deep BnR; 10% 4 Deep BnR.

Blitz Percentages: I don't blitz more than 5% of the time in any situation.

Other Aspects of the Defense: Either leave to AI or adjust based on your personnel/opponents.

That's it. I set it up based on common sense. I've tweaked it a bit based on what has and has not worked. Hope that it helps.

[JMO]

Wow almost exactly the same defense I run and for the same reasons. On my teams the defensive line is always loaded whilst my linebackers are a bit two dimensional. If for some reason your Dline cant get it done however you get burned. I do mix it up more and play some cover 3. I tend to have Amazing Dline/Great safeties/1 good corner/rest role players.

Maybe play 70 % BnR, 30 % cover 3.

I am starting my firstMP leauge soon, and Im not sure if Ill use tis much zone as ppl could key into it. If your up against a QB who cant read defenses or is just bad, you can let him kill himself.

[Leonidas]

I tested this out, and by itself it did bring down some of the passing numbers as you suggest. However, it got killed against the run (using the AIs settings on that as you suggested). This did inspire me to take what you did, modify it a bit, and mate it with my hyper-aggressive run defensive settings and so far the testing looks good. I think you have some excellent ideas here on a simple pass coverage set, but I think it's best optimized with a concentrated run defense. Leave it with the AI settings and you have only half a gameplan.

[DolphinFan1]

I tested this out, and by itself it did bring down some of the passing numbers as you suggest. However, it got killed against the run (using the AIs settings on that as you suggested). This did inspire me to take what you did, modify it a bit, and mate it with my hyper-aggressive run defensive settings and so far the testing looks good. I think you have some excellent ideas here on a simple pass coverage set, but I think it's best optimized with a concentrated run defense. Leave it with the AI settings and you have only half a gameplan.

I haven't tried it yet, but don't you think it would be good against the run if you do as he says and get 4 big bruisers on the DL who are good against the run. And all of his suggestions for LB and DB's are good at run defense. Have you tried that?

I was just wondering because I was going to try this strategy and wanted to know what worked.

[albionmoonlight]

I haven't tried it yet, but don't you think it would be good against the run if you do as he says and get 4 big bruisers on the DL who are good against the run. And all of his suggestions for LB and DB's are good at run defense. Have you tried that?

I was just wondering because I was going to try this strategy and wanted to know what worked.

Over the course of a season, the defense described above tends to cause the opponent to average just under 4.0 YPC. So I think that it is good, but not dominating against the run.

However, there do seem to be games when we can't stop ANYONE running the ball. Like, 250 yards rushing by the other team. Again, over the course of an entire season, pretty good in my opinion. But there are some games when, for whatever reason, we get smoked.

I cannot, thusfar, figure out why that happens sometimes.

Also, since we are discussing it, this does not seem to be a defense that gets a lot of turnovers (though that may be because I don't really bend over backwards to get a high INT rating for my secondary).

[Leonidas]

I haven't tried it yet, but don't you think it would be good against the run if you do as he says and get 4 big bruisers on the DL who are good against the run. And all of his suggestions for LB and DB's are good at run defense. Have you tried that?

I was just wondering because I was going to try this strategy and wanted to know what worked.
I did my 20 season test with this and it really was a dog against the run. YPC were up about 3 tenths, total yards per season up around 100. Average wins and points stayed about the same, so the tradeoff in passing improvement was lost in bad run defense. I theorize the problem is the AI builds a complete gameplan. If you go changing just the pass coverage it ruins the AI gameplan and makes the run defense inefective.

I tweaked this somewhat, mated it with my hyper aggressive run defense and got some very promising results. The run defense wasn't as good as it was just strictly under the hyper run, but the pass defense was definitely better. So there was a pretty happy medium.

I also experimented with the 3-deep coverage and found it to be pretty much useless. I also did some test runs changing up the blitzing scheme and found that Albion is dead on with not blitzing. Things got signficantly worse the more I blitzed.

[Nogram]

Leonidas,

Can you either post some screenshots of how you implemeted the "Hyper Aggressive Run Defense", or give a description. I.e. did you Basic Defensive Play Selection Chart?

Thanks,

Margon

[Leonidas]

Leonidas,

Can you either post some screenshots of how you implemeted the "Hyper Aggressive Run Defense", or give a description. I.e. did you Basic Defensive Play Selection Chart?

Thanks,

MargonI can't give away too much as I'll be using some variant of this online. But I'll give you a basic idea of what I am doing. Yeah, this is on the basic D play chart. All aggressive run D on run situations, all pass D on obvious pass situations (split between aggressive and regular pass D as I am not sure what the diff between the two is), and a split between aggr run D and pass D during those times it could go either way. I guess it's really a black and white style since I found minor adjustments don't do much of anything. It's really an all or nothing scheme. Go strong run against the run, strong pass against the pass, and strive for a balance on those few in-between situations. And on the adjustments screen I just accentuate what I did in the basic gameplan.

I even tried another variant with just all run almost all the time (except the obvious pass situations) and it really killed the run, but it also got really killed by the pass. I might pull that one out if faced with a really strong run team with a game manager type at QB.

But of course none of this is a substitute for strong personnel. All I am testing is how well a gameplan does compared to letting the AI run things. Albion says his version is doing really well against the rest of the league, and I have no reason to doubt that. He may also have personnel well suited to that style that make his team perform better than the rest. My studies are trying to make my offense and defense simply execute better within itself. I've tested with first place teams and last place teams. I made the Indi Colts really good, and the San Diego Chargers almost average. Usually my test runs are with .500 teams that I can eek out 9 win seasons with on average. Other than collecting winning % data I really don't look at how well it does against the league. It's all relative.

[bselig]

I've had a lot of good results with an all-aggressive pass D gameplan, except on really obvious running downs like 3rd and 1. I give up 4.5-5.5 YPC every year, but it doesn't really seem to matter, probably because my offense is good enough that teams have to pass to keep up.

Also, totally unrelated, I managed to notch my first undefeated year in FOF07:

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/8954/2015ch8.th.jpg (http://img239.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2015ch8.jpg)